Chaplain's Corner!

As I write this article my wife and I are in Biloxi, Mississippi taking a week's vacation and feeling very much out of place. We have entered into another culture. It is apparent here that the Mardi Gras of New Orleans has expanded into the Mississippi Gulf Coast and we are in the middle of it. There are all day celebrations happening on our street with three parades. Children are out of school for two days and everyone else takes off work.

As our curiosity comes alive we ask questions like "What is this all about" and "What's this thing about all the beads" and no one seems to really know for sure. I guess it's like when you're at work any excuse will do for a party. What I've since learned is that all the merrymaking of Mardi Gras culminates in Fat Tuesday (or Shrove Tuesday) which is the last day before the Holy Day of Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Season of Lent which is solemn and often involves fasting. Historically, Fat Tuesday was when Europeans who planned to do without rich foods during Lent used up all the cooking fat on the day before Ash Wednesday and feasted. It is still observed by many in the United States today. But I still don't know about all those beads!

Sometimes in karting it is hard to get people to understand our enthusiasm for the sport. It might be considered by some to be different culture, like me at Mardi Gras. Yet for us insiders it can easily consume us. The racing, competition, mechanical expertise, family, friends and all that's involved. It's a little bit like an endless party.

Even in Christianity we can sometimes feel out of place. To become a Christian, we learn it's a matter of trusting in what God did for us by sending His son, Jesus Christ, to the cross. There, Jesus took the sin of all mankind on himself, paying the penalty and setting us free from the consequences of our sin. He arose from the dead, showing it was paid in full.

But after we've learned about that, it can seem so difficult or impossible to live the Christian life. The fact is that we can't do it by ourselves, and without God's help we feel out of place. It can be something like this: a story about Christopher Columbus and his crew. They set out to go somewhere and didn't know where they were going, neither did they know how to get there; and when they arrived they didn't know where they were.

Sanctification, or being made holy (free from sin), is a process with the end goal of being like Christ and becoming useful to His service. To do this, one must enter into a process of continual change brought about through prayer and with the help of the Holy Spirit which Jesus promised he would send to us in His place when He ascended into heaven. St. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:17: "Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" More on this next time!

Chaplain Ken