Course Correction

Every once and a while, God sends us something that is meant to redirect us towards Himself. Sometimes, this comes in the form of great changes such as a new baby, a job loss, or a serious illness. Other times, though, God sends us small things to correct our course. He sees when we are beginning to veer off, and before we can get too far He brings us back to Himself. It is up to us, though, to respond to this direction.

Yesterday was one of those "off" days for me. Some would say I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. For some reason, all day I was overly concerned with myself. I was stressed about work, stressed about finances, and just generally stressed about getting everything done that needed to get done. As a result, I was impatient with those around me, with my co-workers, with Liz. I was convinced that I was God's greatest contribution to society, and I couldn't understand why people wouldn't just let me do what I needed to do. (Well, that might be an exaggeration of what I was thinking, but you get the drift). In short, I was a grump.

But then, last night, Liz and I sat down to watch the movie "Of Gods and Men". It had been highly recommended to us from a number of people, and after watching it, I can also highly recommend it to all those who haven't seen it. It is the story of seven French Trappist monks in Algeria facing persecution from Muslim fundamentalists and is based on actual events that occurred in 1995-96. As time goes on for these monks, it becomes clearer and clearer to them that if they stay where they are the radical Muslims will kill them. The movie shows the process each monk goes through in making his decision and frames the story within the daily rhythm of monastic life. It is a beautiful portrayal of the decision to offer oneself up to Christ, a decision that is ultimately a response to His love for us.

Watching the movie, God gave me a gentle course correction. The movie presented me with a number of beautiful lessons in silence, humility, love, devotion, and ultimately, self-sacrifice. I knew that throughout the day, I had been so focused on WHAT I had to do, and not WHOM I had to do it for. My soul was "loud;" it had strayed from the desert of God into the city of Babel . The movie was a reminder of the silence and humility that form such an integral part of the Christian life. These two gifts from God are always available to us, but we must accept them. For the larger part of the day, I had not been accepting them.

This tiny course correction was just another way in which God shows His love. The greatest challenge of this correction is to absorb it and make it my own. It's so easy to slip back, to return to the way I was acting before. But the beautiful thing about these course corrections is that they teach us to always return to God. Why would I need one of these corrections if I were not weak? And if God gives me a correction, shouldn't I trust Him all the more afterwards? One of the most beautiful lines in the movie came very early on. It was in a hymn the monks were singing, and unfortunately I may butcher it here. However, it summed up what God corrected in me: "Recognizing weakness is not a virtue, for weakness is a fact. The virtue comes from the response of Faith, Hope, and Love."

The Power of Nature, and the Weakness of a Child

The earthquake this past week and the promise of a hurricane this coming weekend have gotten me thinking about man's existence in this great big powerful world of ours. Though the earthquake was relatively minor, it was still the first time I had ever seen the earth move like that. It made me realize that there are physical forces at work in the world that go far beyond my ability to cope with. When an earthquake hits, you can run under doorframes and everything, but in the end you are stuck just waiting for it to end.

Similarly, as Irene takes aim at the East coast, I fear for the safety of all our brothers and sisters in the storm's path. From the looks of it, there will be injuries and possibly even deaths. Homes will be damaged, businesses may be lost. In short, lives will be changed and there is not much man can do about it. It's not like we can physically stop the storm.

The complete helplessness of man in these situations reminds me that we are only small children in this world. So many days we go about our business not thinking how fragile we are. We are beings that like to be in control of everything, and while stability and security are good, we sometimes believe we have more stability and security than we do. This false sense of security is especially true in today's world where everything is on demand. We are becoming very used to having every wish of ours fulfilled (just ask anyone how they feel when their internet connection goes down.)

This desire for stability, for security, is something natural in man. It is ultimately rooted in man's desire for God, who is immutable. In his desire for stability, man cries out for the permanence of union with God. The unstoppable nature of these storms reminds us that true stability, true security, true peace is found only in God. Everything we have can be taken away from us in an instant; everything, that is, except our relationship with God. Only we can forfeit that gift, only we can separate ourselves from His Love. "For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:38-39

Our desire for permanence, though, should ultimately compliment the knowledge of our littleness. If we recognize how small we are, and we desire permanence, than we must trust in God completely. Small children who are just learning how to use their legs find stability in their littleness by turning to their parents. They are willing to throw themselves about because they firmly believe their parents will catch them. Similarly, when we recognize our littleness in the face of these storms, we must trust totally in God. Only in trusting completely can we find the stability we truly long for. It may not be a material stability, and in this world there is still suffering, but it will be an interior stability. It will be a foretaste of the changeless vision in Heaven.

The Great Cool Down

I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to talk about the earthquake. The entire internet has been abuzz since yesterday afternoon with continuous talk about the earthquake. So, for a little break from earthquake related news, I'm going to talk about the weather.

Of course, it is now late August and the college is back to its normal rhythm of classes and social events. It's a time of new beginnings as all of the students get used to new living arrangements, classes, and classmates. We had my sister over for dinner last night, and she filled us in on all the new policies and the new goings on at the school. As I sat there listening to her, though, it struck me just how incongruous it was that school BEGINS in late August.

This year more than ever I've noticed what a time of change late August is. It is the beginning of the end, as it were. It is the time where the heat of July finally breaks, the weather cools just slightly, and everything finally feels like it is moving towards Fall. All the major events of the summer are over now. Throughout all of last spring we planned multiple trips here and there that have been sitting on the calendar for months: Freddie and Nicole's house in June, Hilary's wedding in July, Gettysburg with my parents and a business trip to Canada in August. Now, we'll be home for some time before heading out for more trips around the holidays. We are now the opposite of the people we are in February. In February we can't wait to get out and travel; now we can't wait to stay near home.

With the breaking of the heat (for the most part) and the last of the summer trips, a gentle calm is beginning to settle in to the Anderson household. We are excited about all the Fall activities that lie just around the corner, and we will relish the apple pickings, bonfires, cool evenings, and fall colors with great enthusiasm. But it will be a calm enthusiasm. The frenzy of spring and summer is slowly starting to pass away as we move towards a true "fullness" in nature.

There are many lessons for men during this time of year. A lot about calming down, finding peace, settling into the day to day routine and reflecting on the higher things. I won't say anything about these, though, because I strum these chords quite frequently on this blog (and I'm sure I'll have more to say as we actually move in to Fall). Rather, I'd wish to leave you with this description of Fall by the author Hilaire Belloc. Of course, we're not quite yet to the time he describes, but I simply wish to bring to everybody's mind where this great cooling down is headed:

"The scent of life is never fuller in the woods than now, for the ground is yielding up its memories. The spring when it comes will not restore this fullness, nor these deep and ample recollections of the earth. For the earth seems now to remember the drive of the ploughshare and its harrying; the seed, and the full bursting of it, the swelling and the completion of the harvest. Up to the edge of the woods throughout the weald the earth has borne fruit; the barns are full, and the wheat is standing stacked in the fields, and there are orchards all around. It is upon such a mood of parentage and of fruition that the dead leaves fall."

Just a walk through the park

A couple years ago, I attended a retreat at the Community of St. John in Princeville, IL lead by the semi-famous Fr. Nathan. During one of those talks, Fr. Nathan said that sometimes following God's will was like a husband going for a walk through the park with his wife. Normally, this is a very sweet scene, as husband and wife stroll along the path looking at the beauty of the flowers and trees together. However, the scene takes on a whole new beauty if the wife is blind. As they walk through the park, the husband keeps his blind wife on the path with gentle motions of the hand, and if the wife lets go, then she may wander into the flowers and feel the pain of the thorns. But if she holds on to her husband's hand, and follows him step by step, she can still sense the beauty of the place dimly. Her husband's descriptions, though, become her main source of knowledge.

Of course, in this analogy, the fallen human soul is akin to the blind wife. Our senses and intellect have been dimmed by sin, and while we can still somewhat sense the beauty that is around us, there is so much that we can miss. Our best way to know the true goodness in things is by listening and taking to heart the words of our souls' husband, God. Though we can still come to knowledge on our own, His Divine Revelation is a description of Beauty itself that is given to us out of love. This Divine Revelation must be the knowledge that we value above all others. Philosophy, the Sciences, Math, Economics, Politics - all of these are good and worthy of our pursuit as well. The loving words of the Bridegroom, though, are what is really important. "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God."


What really got me thinking about this analogy, though, was the lessons in it for how we are to follow God's will. I've noticed in myself, and in a number of friends around me, that there is a certain restlessness about God's will. In conversation with people my age, many seem restless about what the future holds for them. They don't know if they are called to married or religious life. They don't know when they're going to be able to afford to pursue to live the life they want for their children. They're not sure what they're called to do in the work sphere. There seems to be so many people in their mid-20's who are anxious to have all the stability of people in their mid-40's!


Liz and I fall into this category. We worry about jobs, education, buying a home, providing for our children. I tend to become over anxious about these things. But then I go back to the image of the blind wife, following her love in the garden. She doesn't know the path, and if she concentrates too much on finding the way for herself she will miss what her husband is saying to her. She will also miss the gentle motions of His hand, as He guides her through the garden. She may even let go, thinking she feels the path going another direction and then end up among the thorns of the flowers that are there for her to enjoy. In order for her to avoid this, she has to stop concentrating on the path and start concentrating on her husband. She must trust Him, and learn to respond to His gentle touch. She doesn't know where the path will go, or what sort of turns lie ahead of her. But she can't worry about that, she just needs to focus on her Love. He will guide her through the garden in such a way as to make her happy.


I pray for all of us in our mid-20's, just graduated from college. As we begin our lives, I pray that we might not be anxious. I pray that we can totally focus on the Love of our souls, who guides us through this garden of life with gentle and loving motions of His hand. And I especially pray that we can let go of our own efforts enough that we can learn to enjoy the garden through His eyes.

Regarding a World Gone Mad

16,000 policemen on the streets, 1,100 arrest in four nights, over $150 million in damages to be paid for by British taxpayers. Those are just some of the numbers from the continuing riots going on in the U.K. right now. For the past four nights, Britain has been torn asunder by gangs of youth looting and destroying everything in their path. The government has had to boost police presence to massive levels, and it has even gotten so bad that Parliament has had its vacation cancelled (you know its bad when the government cancels vacations).

Supposedly, all this chaos is due to the police shooting of a young black man in London. However, many news outlets are starting to realize that the true causes for this unrest lie much deeper. Anthony Faiola, in an article for the Washington Post, says

"Whatever the reason, the riots have exposed a desperate youth culture buried inside British society, with people linked to one another as never before through text messaging and social networking sites...

The violence in Britain has differed from the kind of politically charged protests seen recently in Greece and Spain in response to hard economic times. In Britain, the rage has appeared blind, apolitical and profoundly selfish. Looters set alight a historic department store, a Sony distribution center and tiny, family-owned groceries. They have burned the bikes of poor residents and the cars of richer ones. One gang of masked thugs burst into a fashionable Notting Hill eatery to rob diners, clashing with restaurant workers wielding rolling pins. Other rioters simply fought one another."

Faiola does seem to start hinting at what I think is the real problem here, and that is "a breakdown of family values years in the making." For years now, Great Britain has been on the forefront of secular humanism. It legalized abortion in 1967, and allowed for homosexual "civil partnerships" in 2004. It has prided itself on getting rid of Christian culture in place of the new humanism.

And this is where it has come. Laws favoring abortion and homosexual unions were supposed to make the U.K. a better society. They were supposed to be laws that let people live how they wanted with who they wanted. In a word, they were supposed to give people the chance to be happy. Instead, though, the secularism behind these laws has created a vast emptiness within the hearts of Great Britain's youth. This upcoming generation has been taught to deny God, to deny His love, and now the emptiness in their heart is showing forth in these riots, which are almost becoming a past time in Great Britain.

As a society, the U.K. has turned away from God and towards consumerism. In response, the youth now send text messages that say, "Everyone run wild, all of London and others are invited! Pure terror and havoc & Free stuff. Just smash shop windows and cart out da stuff u want!" We are witnessing what happens when man looks for fulfillment in all things but God. Eventually he wakes up and realizes his deep unhappiness. Then, he turns to anger and rage as means to fill the hole.

We must pray for the U.K., and we must take warning here in the states. The U.K. is several steps ahead of us, but we're on the same road as them. I hope these riots may be a lesson for us, that the lies of the culture of death do not bring happiness but only anger. Only Christ can bring true happiness, and true peace.

Humility

Recently, a friend of mine and I were talking about the virtue of humility and about its central role in the Christian lifestyle. Since then, I've been struck by exactly how central it is. I've noticed how many occasions throughout the day we have for pride. Whether it be something happening at work or at home, there are so many instances where our pride rears up, and we feel wronged by the situations around us.

As fallen human beings, we tend to believe in ourselves far more than we should. We often have a disordered desire to be seen as important or noteworthy to the world around us. This is something universal to human experience throughout the ages, but there are so many examples of it in our own times. I believe the obsession with fame witnessed through the phenomenon of reality TV is largely a result of this desire for importance. Similarly, many of our politicians are in office not because they necessarily feel called to the self-sacrifice of leadership, but rather they wish to be viewed as powerful. Or, when I become jealous because a conversation has turned away from me to another person, this is another example of pride. 

There's a particular temptation to pride, also, when one possesses the truth. This is something we see even in Jesus's time in the example of the religiously orthodox Pharisees. How many times in the Gospel are the Pharisees shocked that Jesus associates himself with sinners? They are appalled that this man, who claims to be "the way, the truth, and the life" eats with those who don't follow the Jewish regulations. For the Pharisees, they have fallen into this mindset of "We have the truth, and these sinners do not, why does he socialize with them?" It's their pride that blinds them to who Jesus is, and I can't help but notice that I and others within the Catholic Church sometimes have this attitude as well. We look at those who disagree with us: proponents of same-sex marriage, advocates for abortion, immodestly dressed women and like the Pharisee we say, "God, I thank thee that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers" instead of repeating the prayer of the publican: "God, be merciful to me a sinner!"

The effects of our pride, though, are the same as the effects of the Pharisees' pride - we are cut off from Jesus Christ. How can we recognize how important we are to Him, if we are constantly seeking to be important in the eyes of others? How can we see Truth in our souls if we are focused on His apparent absence in others? Humility is not a degradation of one's self, but rather it is an opening up of the heart and mind to God. By removing ourselves from the center of the universe, we allow God to bring us in to the center of Himself. This is primarily done, though, in the smallest situations of day to day life. It involves accepting the injustices that come, and not dwelling on the faults of others. It means that we must always be mindful of the thoughts we are entertaining and the emotions we are actively engaging in. But most of all it means recognizing our littleness and pleading for Christ's help. Lord, that I may be humble, so that I might love!   

Good Wholesome Entertainment

It's amazing how easy it is to get sucked into watching TV. Case in point: Liz and I recently finished the two mini-series "The Winds of War" and "War and Remembrance." Not a big deal, right? Well, a quick IMDB search reveals that this is almost 2,453 minutes of footage. For the mathematically challenged, that's 40.9 hours, or a little over 1.5 days of TV watching. This isn't the first time we've gotten sucked into a series like this, either. Since we've gotten married, we've watched three seasons of "Alias," "Brideshead Revisited," "Jeeves and Wooster," and now "The Winds of War" and "War and Remembrance."

Now, I'm not saying watching all of these is necessarily a bad thing. Liz and I have enjoyed all of these series, and many of them have been intellectually stimulating. However, it does strike me exactly how much TV this is when I list it all out. Further, we have a tendency to go through these series very quickly. Usually, once we get into a series, all we want to do during an evening is sit back, pop in the next episode and relax. Interestingly, though, we find that the longer a series goes on, the less actual relaxing we're doing. In fact, there is normally a point in a series where we look forward to getting it over with simply so we aren't watching TV any more!

It's this phenomenon, this "TV exhaustion," that really strikes me as interesting. Growing up, we always had a TV in the household, and as a kid growing up in the 90's I was pretty much always glued to it. It wasn't until I got to Christendom that I stopped watching TV for hours every day. Life became just too busy, and since TVs weren't allowed in the dorms, I wasn't going to go out of my way to watch it. Instead, I spent my time studying, reading, hanging out with friends, praying in the chapel (less than I ought to have), and taking part in various campus events. During this time, I began to see what a life without TV was like. I learned how to truly relax, and how to enjoy life outside the screen.

A couple of nights ago, instead of watching TV, I read aloud to Liz some of the stories of James Herriot. If you haven't read them, I would definitely say you have to check them out. They are a set of stories about a veterinarian in the English country side. They are stories of dogs, pigs, cows, sheep, cats, farms, gardens, men, women and creation. Sitting there, reading aloud to my wife and son, I became more relaxed than I had been in a long time. I wasn't completely inactive like when I was watching TV, but that's what made it so relaxing.

Josef Pieper used to talk about how true leisure involves action, while the modern world tries to sell inaction as leisure. Good, wholesome activities such as reading books, playing music, and going for walks constitute true leisure. The difficulty is that we have become accustomed, as a culture, to complete inactivity. In some sense, inactivity is easier than active leisure, but it's not nearly as restful. At the end of a long work day, I don't really feel like practicing the banjo or reading out loud - that is, until I do it anyways. Then, I find that I am more refreshed then when I am simply inactive in front of the TV.

Don't get me wrong - I don't know if there is necessarily anything wrong with relaxing by watching TV. I simply aim to propose an alternative. Rather than watching TV, I think more people should try to find activities to cultivate for leisure. If they did, I wonder if our society would start moving towards a more creative and intellectual society, rather than one that gets most of its views while "vegging" out.