January 29, 2006
Laity Sunday: Richard McCarty
Throughout history, literature and even the movies we have seen the pairing of an emotional person with an intellectual person: sometimes for a dramatic story – and often for comic purposes. Either way, the conflict is in the two different ways these people look at a situation – communicate with each other – and solve problems. Hard enough when it’s two people – how about when the emotional and the intellectual conversation gets loud in our own heads?
Well, I stand before you as someone who has an ongoing conversation between the emotional and the intellectual sides of my brain – especially when it comes to my faith journey. My journey – which I seem to travel with a compass and no map – has been defined by the emotional need for a denomination AND an environment that brings joy and love – and my need for peace, inclusion and justice – the intellectual.
I grew up in Suffield, Connecticut – working on a corn and tobacco farm, attending the public schools, living the middle income rural life with my three sisters and my parents, and having my grandmother, aunts, uncles and all ten cousins within a 3 mile radius of each other.
We went to Sacred Heart Catholic Church where I was an altar boy for many years. I even got to be the book holder for the bishop on two separate occasions! Every Sunday, we would get a visiting priest from the seminary in our town. These were teachers who would say one mass each weekend to help out the local priest. Those sermons were always the best ones for me. They were thinking sermons – thought provoking – culturally significant – current. Not the traditional fare from a parish priest who would ordinarily focus on the diocesan message of the week. This was the seed of my intellectual approach to faith.
I weighed seminary versus college. However, the deal-breaker for me was the “married priest” issue – raising a family was too exciting of a prospect; almost a “right” I had coming to me. So I went to college at Fairfield – a Jesuit university. For those of you who don’t know anything about the Jesuits, I’ll sum it up succinctly: the Vatican has never been a big fan of the Jesuits! The Jesuits are the educators, the questioners, the envelope pushers, the liberal thinkers in the Catholic Church. The current Pope – in his first official act – fired the editor (a priest) of the Jesuit magazine AMERICA for publishing views other than the official church doctrine.
My first class at Fairfield was a religion class – so we have a former altar boy at a 90% Catholic university – and the class was being taught by an Episcopal minister! We spent the first two weeks studying Eastern religions to which I had never been exposed! We read “The Last Temptation of Christ” – a book banned by the Catholic Church – for the final exam that semester! My intellectual faith was being broadened and I was questioning the stances of the Church – especially the ones claiming exclusivity to the truth. My faith was strong in the things I couldn’t see however it was weak when it came to the rules of the denomination.
Anne and I met at Fairfield, and were married two years after college. After a time in New York City and Stamford, we moved to Southington in 1991 and anticipated starting a family right away. We joined Mary Our Queen Church and, subsequently, a small Christian community during our first Lenten season at the church. During this time, we learned that having a family biologically was not in our future. We decided that adoption would be a loving choice and we waited. And waited. And waited. It was a difficult emotional time for us. There were times when we questioned God’s plan. It was made more difficult for me when my Dad passed away in 1994. I remember feeling so empty and let down – how could God take my father before he would ever know my child or watch me become a father? I was emotionally let down. I began to pray more to my father in heaven, rather than to my God.
Time heals memory and so does receiving that call in 1996 from Kentucky that Richard John was born and we could take him home. And then four years later when Massachusetts called and we learned that Samuel Alexander would be our second son. Yet, my prayers were still more focused on the memory of my father, and my church life was workman-like: go every Sunday, recite the prayers and do the duty. Rarely was I challenged to think about my faith and – equally as disappointing – I never challenged MYSELF to grow in the faith.
I began an association with the Passion Play here in town and directed and performed in this for five years. Each year I would re-write sections of the play trying to challenge my faith scope and the perspective of others – cast members and those who came to see this annual prayer. My prayer life was renewed – I was becoming more emotional about my relationship with God and Jesus. At the same time I was becoming more intellectually detached from the doctrine of the Catholic Church. Did I want my sons to be exposed to a church that was seemingly more committed to their rules than to the message of Christ? Did I want them part of an institution that didn’t see women as equal partners in faith? I began my intellectual search for an emotional home.
I was on the board at the YMCA and met Gordon Ellis – and learned from Tony Palmieri that all Gordon’s sermons were online. I began reading these sermons in the summer of 2004. It became obsessive in a way: I couldn’t wait to log on Monday morning and read his messages of love, inclusion and of the extravagant welcome Christ has for all who follow Him. I branched out and scoured the United Church of Christ website and learned about the great history of social justice in the Congregational Church, now carried on by the UCC.
And then, in November of 2004, at the peak of my intellectual and emotional faith ride, I had a mild heart attack – a 75% blockage in my right coronary artery which was treated with three days in the hospital, an angioplasty, a stent and four pills a day. The recuperation period which followed was amazing: I left my job to join the staff at the YMCA; I was supported by friends and family in a way I can never repay; and most significantly, I was emotional about what I needed to do on my faith journey. As my high school Algebra teacher used to say: “Don’t think, do!” Christmas fell on a Saturday in 2004. I went to Mary Our Queen on Christmas Eve. And on Sunday, December 26th I walked into the 6 pm contemporary worship service here at the First Congregational Church of Southington.
I had felt reverence in a church before. I had received healing and blessings in a church before. But until that night I had never felt JOY before. A wonderfully emotional response. At the end of all the intellectual searching, I was hit by a blanket of emotion which covered me with an extravagant welcome like a newborn coming home for the first time. I knew this was where I wanted to be – where I had to be.
I rushed home to let Anne know about what I had found – yet I realized that this was going to be tough for the family to make a switch. We were firmly attached to Mary Our Queen on a social level, yet we both were intellectually apart from the Catholic Church. This would take some time…So, for five months, I would attend Catholic mass at 5 pm on Saturday and TGI Sunday at 6 pm on Sundays. In April I went on a retreat with Linda Fernandes-Bailey to Wisdom House and had an incredible experience. And in May, I was embraced by my dear friends in BRANCHES and am now touched to be part of their loving and creative family. And finally in June, Annie did the bravest thing she had done since saying “I do” – she said she would try the Congregational Church for a year. After only a few weeks, we came home from church one Sunday and she said, “You know, there’s no turning back.” She was emotionally and intellectually hooked. And so we officially joined the church this past December.
In my journey, I have learned that the emotional side of my faith needed to be nurtured at the same time as my intellectual seed was growing. All along, they were side by side. On the days I was emotional, Jesus was my companion – offering intellectual examples to me; reasons to lead a more directed and spiritual life for others and to seek inclusion, peace and justice for all. On other days, Jesus would be my emotional guide while I sought the intellectual, reminding me that without the love and acceptance of his life, death and resurrection, I am just an empty thinker.
We all need to be open to the conversation with God; following our heart AND our head to God’s love – not forsaking one for the other. We need to build a bridge between them and allow ourselves to grow and evolve in our faith. God is still speaking – I am certainly still listening – and loving every minute of it!
Amen.