Reframe this
So as we all know by now, the pope passed on yesterday. I've checked all my favorite blogs, and no one has written about it yet. So let me be the first.
My therapist talks a lot about reframing -- taking the negative stuff we all think and turning it into more positive, realistic thoughts. While I am sad about the pope's passing, there's a different way to REFRAME it.
Pope John Paul II, while a great religious and world leader, was not a progressive guy. He didn't want to hear about women's rights, about individual thought. Yet he was against communism in his native Poland and elsewhere. So while it is extremely sad that he died, I will reframe it to say that I think his death can be a catalyst for much-needed change in the Catholic church. I fear that if the church doesn't get with the times soon, it will slip into irrelevance, at least in the US.
One news report called American Catholics "cafeteria Catholics," basically saying we pick and choose which beliefs we go along with. Well, yeah! The Catholic church doesn't believe in premarital sex (of which I have engaged in), birth control (ditto), in vitro fertilization (may be how we have a child), stem-cell research (possibly could cure people of stuff like, oh, Parkinson's, which the pope had) and plenty of other issues, like abortion, that I'm not touching with the proverbial 10-foot pole. The only issue I can foresee is that there's talk of the next pope being older, to be a transitional pope so he doesn't dominate the Vatican for 20-plus years like JP II. An old guy isn't likely to be liberal and conservative. Let's just hope and pray that the conclave produces results we can all live with.
There was just a robin on my very wet lawn. I've got buds coming up all around. You know what that means...
My therapist talks a lot about reframing -- taking the negative stuff we all think and turning it into more positive, realistic thoughts. While I am sad about the pope's passing, there's a different way to REFRAME it.
Pope John Paul II, while a great religious and world leader, was not a progressive guy. He didn't want to hear about women's rights, about individual thought. Yet he was against communism in his native Poland and elsewhere. So while it is extremely sad that he died, I will reframe it to say that I think his death can be a catalyst for much-needed change in the Catholic church. I fear that if the church doesn't get with the times soon, it will slip into irrelevance, at least in the US.
One news report called American Catholics "cafeteria Catholics," basically saying we pick and choose which beliefs we go along with. Well, yeah! The Catholic church doesn't believe in premarital sex (of which I have engaged in), birth control (ditto), in vitro fertilization (may be how we have a child), stem-cell research (possibly could cure people of stuff like, oh, Parkinson's, which the pope had) and plenty of other issues, like abortion, that I'm not touching with the proverbial 10-foot pole. The only issue I can foresee is that there's talk of the next pope being older, to be a transitional pope so he doesn't dominate the Vatican for 20-plus years like JP II. An old guy isn't likely to be liberal and conservative. Let's just hope and pray that the conclave produces results we can all live with.
There was just a robin on my very wet lawn. I've got buds coming up all around. You know what that means...
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