Belief: a feeling of being sure that someone or something exists or that something is true.
Where do your personal beliefs come from? Can you really trust the source?
I grew up in a small town where neighbors knew neighbors, children were taught manners and held to them, and families went to church. There were role models in my town, people we trusted and loved, not people made up for some sort of performance. Real people.
Many of today’s role models are those who’ve made names for themselves in sports, movies, television, social media, and politics. They live lives that we envy–money, notoriety, control of others. Somehow the idea pervades our society that these sorts of people are better than most, better than we are because they are so important.
Well, this is sonot true. The importance of a person lies in his heart, not in a newspaper headline.
I think of a seemingly unimportant woman who spends her entire life unknown by any but a few close friends, a woman devoted to her children and husband, a woman who cares for others when they are sick or depressed or in trouble. I think of a person whose only claim to fame is that she loves. A woman who believes that loving is her mission, and has a will strong enough to commit to it. A woman who can overcome anything because she believes this world is not all there is.
I think of a seemingly unimportant man who works for his family, provides for his children, is honest in his job. A man who prays. A man who does not let go of his convictions for something less important. I think of a person whose only claim to fame is that he loves. A man who believes that loving is his mission, and has a will strong enough to commit to it. A man who can overcome anything because he believes this world is not all there is.
I think of a seemingly unimportant priest committed to his parish, or his order; a man whose vocation has been demeaned by some, yet he continues in the holiness of it. A priest for others no matter their often gross imperfections. I think of a priest whose only claim to fame is that he loves. A priest who believes that loving is his mission, and has a will strong enough to commit to it. A priest who can overcome anything because he believes this world is not all there is.
And here is something else I think. When we stand at Heaven’s Gate, we will have no notoriety except the love we’ve shown others. Because God does not read headlines. God reads hearts.
For Catholics, Ash Wednesday (the day after Mardi Gras) is the beginning of Lent, which lasts for forty days. For every Catholic, it is a day to confront the inevitability of his or her death, and for that day, we wear the sign of that inevitability on our foreheads in ashes.
The ashes we receive on our forehead in the shape of a cross serve as an outward sign of our sinfulness and need for penance. The ashes also symbolize our mortality, a reminder that one day we will die and our bodies will return to dust. Traditional words when we receive the ashes are: Remember that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return.
So, Ash Wednesday is a time of self-examination, and of our faith in the promise of eternal life. Can we turn down the noise in our lives for forty days and listen to what God wants to tell us? Because if we don’t listen, we won’t hear him call us by name–our name. We won’t hear that we should not be afraid. We won’t hear that God is madly in love with each one of us. We won’t hear what we can do to change ourselves.
Is there something in our lives that might prevent eternal life? If there is, we have an opportunity to change it. We know who we are. We know we’ve done. Shouldn’t we examine ourselves and work on the problems we may have?
Forgive those things we have done
which have caused you sadness,
and those things we should have done
that would have brought you joy.
In both we have failed
ourselves,
and you.
Bring us back to that place
where our journey began,
when we said that we would follow
the way that you first trod.
Lead us to the Cross
and meet
us there.
DEAR MAMAS, You are the wives. You are the mothers. You are the nannies. You are the teachers. You are the cooks–no, the gourmets! You are the washerwomen and the scrubbers. You are the taxi drivers. You are the gardeners. You are the counselors You are the peace-makers. You are the judges. You are the juries. You are the nesters. You are the consolers. You are the planners. You are the confessors. You are the dream-makers. You are the caterers. You are the celebrators. You are the lovers. You are the listeners.
YOU ARE THE GLUE.
YOURS IS THE HEART THAT TEACHES A CHILD TO LOVE.
YOURS ARE THE HANDS THAT PUT THE PUZZLE OF FAMILY TOGETHER.
YOU ARE IMPORTANT.
YOU ARE NECESSARY, NOT ONLY TO YOUR FAMILY,
BUT TO HUMANITY.
The Hand That Rocks the Cradle Is the Hand That Rules the World–William Ross Wallace
The next time you’re feeling down, instead of being swept along by an ocean of stress, you might try sharing your problems with a trusted friend.
Talking about our problems and sharing our negative emotions with someone we trust can be profoundly healing—reducing stress, strengthening our immune system, and reducing physical and emotional distress (Pennebaker, Kiecolt-Glaser, & Glaser, 1988).
For Christians, the most trusted friend is God, and God is who they first go to for help. Absolutely anyone can talk directly to God through prayer. Our prayers are conversations with God. But God can speak to our minds and hearts through anything — books, television, movies, music, other people. Yet for some people, the idea of talking to God is ridiculous because they insist they do not believe in Him.
Belief in God
Belief in God has fallen the most in recent years among young adults and people on the left of the political spectrum (liberals and Democrats). These groups show drops of 10 or more percentage points comparing the 2022 figures to an average of the 2013-2017 polls.
Most other key subgroups have experienced at least a modest decline, although conservatives and married adults have had essentially no change.
The groups with the largest declines are also the groups that are currently least likely to believe in God, including liberals (62%), young adults (68%) and Democrats (72%). Belief in God is highest among political conservatives (94%) and Republicans (92%), reflecting that religiosity is a major determinant of political divisions in the U.S.
Nearly three-quarters of the most religious Americans, defined as those who attend religious services every week, say they believe God hears prayers and can intervene, as do slightly more than half of conservatives and Republicans, as well as 25% of liberals and 32% of Democrats. Thirty percent of young adults believe God hears prayers and can intervene.
Hearing God
Recently, I read the delightful account of a kindergarten teacher in a Catholic school–when one of her students, a little boy, came up to her desk and proudly announced that he knew the Our Father by heart. She asked him to show her, and every word of his prayer was perfect — until the little boy ended the prayer with: “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us some E-mail, Amen.”
Maybe He won’t send us an email, but God is speaking to us all the time. We only have to listen. Hearing God is essential to building an intimate relationship with Him and learning to clearly distinguish God’s voice is invaluable. The “still, small voice” inside our heads called conscience is often God attempting to speak to us. Maybe we don’t listen. Maybe we tune God out because we don’t like what He’s saying. We may tune Him out so often (to do what we want, instead of what we know He wants) that we lose all contact with Him.
Still, God does not lose contact with us — ever. He loves us. God is always near enough to hear us call to him throughout our life on Earth. Because, in the end, absolutely everybody will talk to God.
“What I wanna know is who’s in charge?” one woman says to the other. She is shaking her head as if speaking of something too horrible to be believed. “Well, today it’s a scary world. Who is in charge of anything these days? You can take all the precautions you want, but things still happen,” the other comments. “Mama said she heard on Big Bam radio the guy went crazy and started shooting at everybody in the clinic. People killed for no reason at all. You can’t predict something like that.” “Yeah, just innocent bystanders doing their jobs, and some nut-case in a face-mask walks in with a gun.” “What’s worse, he got away! Who knows if they’ll ever find him?” She gives a depressing sigh. “We live in a dangerous world.”
How could it happen?
In An Age of Mass Shootings, This Psychological, Southern Gothic Novel, Considers the Answers.
I thought about writing this novel, “Shooting at Heaven’s Gate,” several years ago after being shocked that in a small town near mine, a disillusioned and angry young man took up his shotgun and killed many of his family and co-workers. Why had he done it? Jealousy, greed, revenge, drugs, or some mental disfunction? Why had he destroyed the people he most cared for? Seemingly senseless shootings/murders like these seem to be becoming more prevalent. But the reasons behind them are ancient.
Most of us can retell the story of Cain and Abel, a story of one brother murdering the other. Genesis 4. When the Father (God) favored Abel’s gift over Cain’s, a few narcissistic traits began to itch in Cain, and then finally took him over — jealousy, greed, anger, and revenge, leading to Cain’s murder of Abel. Did God love Cain? Of course. But the sin of Cain separated him from God, just as sin separates us today from God.
Jealousy, Greed, Anger, and Revenge
I have no idea what caused the shootings in this nearby small town, but I suspect some of the above narcissistic traits were involved.
Our life is an ongoing drama between God and each of us. Whether we accept it or not, no matter who we are or what we do, each of us has an inborn, spiritual relationship with the God who created us, the God who loves us infinitely. We can deny it or shout our disagreement. We can act out in reprehensible ways to destroy God’s sovereignty over us. Our God-given free will allows that behavior. But truth cannot be altered. We were made to be good. We live in a world that God made to be good. And yet moral and physical evil exists in spite of the goodness — and therefore, human suffering exists. Yet, God is still merciful.
Goodness Left Behind
In the novel, “Shooting at Heaven’s Gate, goodness is left behind for a time, and evil runs rampart in Bethel, Alabama. Dr. Malcolm J. Hawkins, III, narcissistic, arrogant head of psychology at Bethel University feels his position and his credibility threatened by the impressive, up-and-coming English professor, Ginnie Gillan, because that is the way of narcissists.
“Good and evil do not exist when searching for the best way to scratch an itch. The only question is, Can I get away with it? “says Dr. Malcolm J. Hawkins, PH. D.
If someone threatens Mal’s narcissist’s ego, he shifts into a war-like predator mode and scratches that ‘itch.’ Jealousy, greed, anger and revenge take over him, and Mal decides to use Ginnie’s husband Edmund’s fear and weakness against her. Feeding Edmund a steady diet of drugs and manipulation, Mal then lights the fuse of the greatest tragedy Bethel has ever known. Beyond understanding? Yes!
And yet there are explanations.
Though Edmund acts from a motive of jealousy and anger, he is not a ruthless man, but a victim of Hawkins, and of his own sad life story. Out of an impotence that leads to drugs and the easy way out, Edmund K. Gillan gives himself over to Dr. Hawkins’s control in an effort to relieve his debilitating headaches, stemming from his childhood.
An extremely envious and narcissistic man, Mal Hawkins sees every situation and person as a threat; so when he hears that Edmund’s wife, Ginnie, is seen as an upcoming superstar at the college, and may soon be a department head, Mal views her as deadly competition, and decides to bring her down, using her own husband as his pawn. Edmund loves his wife, but he also loves the drugs Mal gives him. The drugs, his headaches, and the voice of his grandfather, keep Edmund in constant conflict.
Opposition to Wickedness
Just as in a novel, there are real-life compassionate and loving people that shine in opposition to wickedness. Loving teenager, Alma Broussard, lives with her quirky mother Moline, who works in a dental office, and her feisty Aunt Pauline, who runs the chicken farm on which they live with Jose Alvarez and his teenaged daughter, Angelina who has leukemia. Their lives seem wholly separate from the feuds of academia—but again, revelations emerge, and dark secrets lurk in Moline’s past that will bring the people she loves straight into the path of a murderous madman.
Mercy
Even after Cain’s murder of his brother, God showed him mercy. The same mercy He shows not only in this novel, but upon repentance, to us as well. After Cain killed his brother Abel, God declared to Cain, “Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth” (Genesis 4:11-12). In response, Cain lamented, “My punishment is more than I can bear. Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me” (Genesis 4:13-14). God responded, “Not so; if anyone kills Cain, he will suffer vengeance seven times over.” Then the Lord put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him” (Genesis 4:15-16).
Shooting at Heaven’s Gate is a “Theology of the Cross” novel, a battle between good and evil. A bona fide WAR, in which genuine goodness and grace are confronted by wickedness. In the wake of death and destruction, Bethel, the town that used to be called Heaven’s Gate, will find no easy answers, but always, there is hope for mercy and redemption.
PRIORPRAISE forShooting at Heaven’s Gate:
Family relations and lifelong secrets, human brokenness and the grace of transformation, mass shootings, deception, sin and forgiveness. These fundamental themes of the human search for meaning, of the challenge of faith, reconciliation and conversion, are woven throughout this story of a small town in rural Alabama. The complexities of each character, from university professors to farm hands, become the stage for an exploration of the human condition, in the style of C.S. Lewis, with echoes of T.S. Eliot, Geoffrey Chaucer, Macbeth and many others. The novel is followed by a list of themes, questions for book discussions and selected quotes, making it all the easier for study groups of any kind. — Fr. Christopher Viscardi, SJ, Chair and Professor of Theology at Spring Hill College, Mobile, Alabama
Kaye Hinckley has more than earned her keep as a significant contender vying for a living Catholic literature. —Joshua Hren, How to Read (and Write) Like a Catholic, Co-Founder of the MFA at University of St. Thomas, Houston
With a brisk narrative pace, Shooting at Heaven’s Gate by Kaye Park Hinckley invites readers to explore the complicated lives of characters suffering with loss, illness, addiction, and deception. The plot twists make this novel both entertaining and thought provoking with the reassurance that good does win. — Johnnie Bernhard, award-winning author of Sisters of the Undertow and Hannah and Ariela.
Faith and faithlessness do battle in Kaye Park Hinckley’s thought-provoking, unsparing new novel. She reveals the hellish torments … and heavenly convictions … of everyday people in a small Alabama town in an age of mass shootings. Bring faith as you enter Heaven’s Gate. — Charles McNair, author of The Epicureans
Don’t be lulled by the easy, descriptive manner of the beginning chapters. They introduce opposing characters whose thoughts and actions display the good and bad of human nature. Soon, you’ll be put on high alert, and move at lightning speed to satisfy a need to know how these characters interplay with each other. Mal, the manipulator and Edmund’s muddled loss of reality, cause the reader to begin to question, even fear what’s coming, hoping it’s the dream state of a sick, delusional man. Of course, it is no dream. Once the sound of metal is heard, the energy and climax of the book literally explode. Throughout the entire novel, the belief in salvation and forgiveness through confession, suffering, and atonement surfaces as a tenet of Catholic belief, symbolized not only in the characters, but in minute details…about flowers, and guns, geography, and history. Topics of current world concern are touched upon and mentioned briefly, without political overtones, but enough to generate reflection about good and evil, and how they come to be in the human person. A great read. – Terry Lonergan, Longtime Educator, Principal, and reader, Atlanta, Georgia
“Shooting at Heaven’ Gate is different from Hinckley’s other books as the moral themes are explicit and upfront, rather than subtle. I believe this work is a masterpiece. But then I love Kaye’s books because of how she writes (with the eloquence of angels) and for her choice of gritty topics (life is messy). “Shooting at Heaven’s Gate is not Pollyanna and cotton candy. Rather it is filled with real-world brokenness and the need for redemption, accurately painting the struggles on this side of the grave. — Denise-Marie Martin, author of “Tangled Violets.”
A human characteristic is the ability to speak, to converse, to give instruction, to make our opinions known. We talk. We use our tongues–sometimes without thinking, and sometimes very intentionally.
Our speech is directed to another, a listener. The listener may be a child, a friend, a family member, or a stranger in the grocery store. Regardless of who or where, what we say to each other matters. Speech is a gift to be used with care. I would suggest loving care, though I’m often guilty of overlooking that.
Are you certain what you say is the Truth? If you are not certain, then Do Not Speak. That’s more than just common sense, it’s a human being’s responsibility toward others.
But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” — Matthew 12:36
Wow! That’s a lot of personal responsibility.
Yet what we say to each other is not always done with words. Our actions speak for us as well. How do our actions speak to our vulnerable children, or the friends and family who learn from us? Aren’t we especially responsible for our actions as parents and teachers, leaders and co-workers? Do we practice what we preach? Again, many of us often fall far short of that. It’s a good thing we have personal control over what we do, and if needed, the ability to correct ourselves.
There are times though, when we’re not the ‘speakers’ or the ‘doers,’ but the receivers, the targets of speech and action. Over this, we have little control, and no doubt the voices and actions are loud from those with agendas which they will lie to preserve. This includes the news media, and of course, politicians. If they are liars, are they worthy of their high positions?
The new media and politicians are made up of individuals like us. Are these individuals any less responsible than us for what they say in today’s world? Shouldn’t they be TRUTHFUL? Don’t they, too, have the ability to correct themselves? Or have the two prime motivators for LYING — greed and power — overtaken them completely?
Words and actions by those in prominent places can make or break this country. Will the words and actions they use as weapons against others be ignored, or inevitably condemned by those they are supposed to serve?
Beware. The devil, the most famous liar, is on our doorstep now.
He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. — John 8:44
Our leaders ought to be telling us the Truth, yet a majority of those in charge are not. And if we do not challenge them, we will lose our American way of life. A serious danger. Really serious.
Translating a World on the Edge 