Welcome to Reality Café!
Greetings and welcome! Whether you are a believer or a skeptic, liberal or conservative, gay or straight, atheist, agnostic, New Age, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, Vatican II Catholic, traditional Catholic, or not sure, you are welcome here, and I care about you. Having come to believe in God (by God’s grace), I believe God loves us just the way we are, but I also believe He loves us too much to leave us that way (since none of us has yet become all we’re meant to be).
Anyone who’s been living on this planet for a few years has discovered that amidst the many joys of life there are also many disappointments, failures, pain, and suffering. There are people I care deeply about all over the world who struggle with one or more of the following: doubt, guilt, anxiety and/or depression, physical or mental illness or disability, poverty, unemployment, career failures or other reversals of fortune, addictions (drug, alcohol, sexual, etc.), failed marriages, abortions, children born out of wedlock, children who have committed suicide or who have abandoned the beliefs and values with which they were raised, incarceration for crime, a destroyed reputation … the list could go on and on.
My heart goes out to each and every one of them, as well as to all people who are tormented by any of these things but whom I’ve never met.
Without wishing to sound superficial or glib, I do believe — and know, from my own 56 years of lived experience — that in the midst of our sufferings there can nevertheless be serenity, security, and genuine emotional and spiritual healing and wholeness. And I believe that true, deep, lasting happiness, both here and hereafter, is only achieved when our hearts and minds — our entire lives — are freely, fully, and finally conformed to God’s mind and will.
I understand that you may not believe that yet. Come on in to Reality Café with an open mind, and let’s talk!
Best wishes for your happiness now and always,
Gerry Matatics