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\u00a0When I was growing up in Evanston, Illinois, my mother wasn\u2019t particularly religious.\u00a0 She was a lapsed Catholic who didn\u2019t attend Mass very often. She was deeply spiritual, though.\u00a0 And it showed in who she was.<\/p>\n
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Her smile beamed, her laugh carried. She cooked a half-dozen trays of lasagna for the homeless every year and routinely allowed friends in need to stay at our house. She made her living as an obstetrician-gynecologist, bringing life into the world and healing the sick. At her best, my mother was a conduit of God\u2019s love.<\/p>\n
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Colon cancer took Mom\u2019s life just before Christmas many years ago. I was seventeen; my brother Josh was fifteen; my brother Gabe was ten.<\/p>\n
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The following year I decided on a whim to attend a Christmas Eve service. I\u2019m not quite sure why I went.\u00a0 Maybe I just wanted Mom\u2019s light back.<\/p>\n
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That night my Christian journey began. I remember an image in my mind: a silhouette of Jesus with a white, burning light inside him, and a silhouette of myself standing next to him with that same burning light inside me. I barely recall what the preacher said that night. All I really remember is the burning. About year later I was baptized, affirming my trust in Jesus Christ, the light of the world.<\/p>\n
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Before then, I had always been a Democrat, because in Evanston, that\u2019s what one is.\u00a0 But I had never really cared much about politics.\u00a0 Around the time I was baptized, that started to change.<\/p>\n
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One summer I worked in Chicago for the state agency that was responsible for kids who had been taken from their parents because of abuse or neglect. My job was to administer a program that gave housing vouchers to families that were ready to be reunited, but lacked a decent place to live. The number of available vouchers was miniscule compared to the number of eligible families. At twenty years old, I had to decide which families would get a voucher and which ones would not.<\/p>\n
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Once, after making a particularly difficult decision, I left my cubicle, hid in the bathroom, and wept. A decent society, I thought \u2014 a society with respect for the dignity of every person God created \u2014 would never force a family into that situation.\u00a0 I began to understand that the effort to eradicate what Pope John Paul II called \u201cstructural sin\u201d was the very work of Christ.<\/p>\n
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Because of experiences like that one, I decided to dedicate my career to justice and the common good.\u00a0 And I decided to do it in Christ.\u00a0 That, ultimately, is why I co-founded FaithfulDemocrats.com.\u00a0 It\u2019s my way of following Paul\u2019s instruction to be part of Christ\u2019s hands and feet right here on earth (1 Corinthians 12).<\/p>\n
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I don\u2019t believe that good Christians have to be Democrats.\u00a0 And I understand fully well that political parties are very much of man, not of God.\u00a0 But in a fallen world, where pretty much any effort to do good is marred by the fact that all humans fall short, we just have to do the best we can.\u00a0 And my faith has led me here.\u00a0 I hope you enjoy this website, and I hope it helps you put your faith to work for your God and your neighbors.<\/p>\n
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\u00a0When I was growing up in Evanston, Illinois, my mother wasn\u2019t particularly religious.\u00a0 She was a lapsed Catholic who didn\u2019t attend Mass very often. She was deeply spiritual, though.\u00a0 And it showed in who she was. \u00a0 Her smile beamed, her laugh carried. She cooked a half-dozen trays of lasagna for the homeless every year […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1176,"featured_media":168,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c16-from-the-pulpit"],"yoast_head":"\n