{"id":1243,"date":"2015-11-30T10:08:00","date_gmt":"2015-11-30T10:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2015\/11\/expectations.html"},"modified":"2015-11-30T10:08:00","modified_gmt":"2015-11-30T10:08:00","slug":"expectations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2015\/11\/expectations.html","title":{"rendered":"Expectations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
<\/a><\/div>\n

Sometimes built up expectations can be a bear to overcome. \u00a0No matter how well things turn out, there are times when they still can\u2019t meet expectations. \u00a0Take President Obama. \u00a0I personally think he is one of the worst, most inept presidents in our history. \u00a0A born instigator, he has sewn division where there might have been unity, has accomplished little, and what he has done has caused as many problems as solutions. \u00a0He\u2019s mostly a joke overseas, and has made the US appear the same. <\/p>\n

Still, in fairness, if he was able to walk on water and feed the multitudes with fish and loaves, he would scarcely be able to live up to the god-worship that he enjoyed in the 08 campaign. \u00a0With the possible exception of George Washington in the pre-PC\/MCE days, and possibly Martin Luther King, Jr., who enjoys almost holy adoration status in the US, I can\u2019t think of a single person ever given the level of veneration, adoration and god worship as was Obama. \u00a0Clearly it shows that when a people abandon worship of God, they\u2019ll end up worshiping something. \u00a0And that something was Obama.<\/p>\n

So no matter what he did, he never would have lived up to the hype. \u00a0Nobody could. \u00a0Making, of course, his miserable track record all the more noticeable. <\/p>\n

I think of that when I think of our expectations of becoming Catholic. \u00a0What we imagined, and what it became. \u00a0I imagined a Church the way many old time converts described it, where being a Protestant clergy in the days of Pope John Paul II was a big thing. \u00a0Where parishes and dioceses went out of their way to accommodate and help \u00a0those making the difficult journey into the Church; made more difficult by the material travails that occur when an actual vocational minister becomes Catholic.<\/p>\n

So imagine our surprise when we realized that, on the whole, the \u2018separated brethren\u2019 phenomenon had gone the way of the leisure suit. \u00a0And maybe it\u2019s what we expected (indeed, what we were told by some quarters) that made what we experienced all the more difficult.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s the way things can be. \u00a0Perhaps things aren\u2019t as bad, or are better, than we think. \u00a0It\u2019s that sometimes we can build up our expectations to a point where nothing short of seeing God walking on water can live up to the hype.<\/p>\n

One of the reasons I\u2019m glad we don\u2019t have much money. \u00a0I\u2019ve often told my boys about a game I played when I was a kid called Dark Tower. \u00a0A fusion of electronics and a board game, it was quite the rage in the day. \u00a0I took it with me wherever I went because no matter where I was, everyone at every party wanted to play. \u00a0It was pretty awesome. \u00a0But in a bitter twist of fate, all of it was lost but the old, broken tower. \u00a0When I still have almost every game and item from my childhood that was carefully preserved by my parents, it was the one thing that was busted up and lost. \u00a0And today, unlike most of my other games, you can\u2019t find the darn things for less than 400 to 500 dollars. \u00a0If that. \u00a0Due to a lawsuit, it is no longer manufactured, nor will it be. <\/p>\n

But my boys often tell me that it\u2019s OK. \u00a0The hype with which I\u2019ve built the game up is such that, if we had the money and could get the game, it would almost be sure to disappoint. \u00a0And maybe that\u2019s what we should have thought about with becoming Catholic. \u00a0Given the tales and stories we heard, and the assumptions we had, maybe becoming Catholic was a doomed venture from the get-go. \u00a0After all, we imagined we would be brought in, embraced, and helped due to our particular difficulties and sacrifices stemming from our vocations. \u00a0Even had the Church tried to live up to even a portion of our expectations, we might have still been disappointed. \u00a0How much more that there has been little to no effort to do any such thing. <\/p>\n

Just saying..<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes built up expectations can be a bear to overcome. \u00a0No matter how well things turn out, there are times when they still can\u2019t meet expectations. \u00a0Take President Obama. \u00a0I personally think he is one of the worst, most inept presidents in our history. \u00a0A born instigator, he has sewn division where there might have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2805,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nExpectations<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sometimes built up expectations can be a bear to overcome.  No matter how well things turn out, there are times when they still can't meet\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, 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