The great, unknown future

One of the most radical changes in "growing up" is that, at a certain point, you stop having your life completely mapped out for you. As a kid, you have elementary school, then middle school, then high school, then college and, for some, then grad school. Your life is pretty much mapped out so that every four years you move to the next level, take on different things and have a change of scenery. It's a nice system, you don't really worry very much about the future because you know "in x years I'll be moving on." Then, quite suddenly one day it stops. There are no more definite road markers in your future that delineate when your life is going to change. Life changes, especially the big ones, start to come at you when you least expect it.

Indeed, this change from a planned to an unplanned future is one of the hardest things about growing up. I can remember when I graduated from college (way back in 2009) that this particular thing was one of the scariest for me. It frightened me that I no longer had a concrete date for when I would move on. Suddenly I realized exactly how vast and unplanned the future was. Talking to other college graduates since then, I've heard the same thing from them. They've talked about how unsettling it is to no longer have that concrete goal. Some have expressed how lost they feel because they don't have this tangible end to look forward to.

This mental transition is probably one of the most difficult and yet most rewarding things a person has to go through in life. It requires an acceptance of "not knowing", something that goes against the grain for man. It requires that one accept the fact that the future cannot be known and that all we have is the present. However, once someone can do this, there comes an incredible joy in not knowing. Liz and I don't know where are lives will take us. We have hopes, we have dreams, but we don't know. Anything could change in a minute. So, all we're left with is the present.

It is a joy to me to know that, God willing, in twenty years my life will probably be similar to the one I'm living now. My days will most likely still consist of prayer, work, play and loved ones. I probably won't be living in any dorms, and I won't be reverting back to the four year model. I'll be trying to make ends meet, and I'm happy with that. Various things in my life may change, especially things that definitely do change. In the next 20 years there will be joys and sorrows, dying and living. I'll probably lose loved ones, but then hopefully I will also gain some also.

Of course, I may be completely off base. God may call me to Himself at some point in the next 20 years, and that's something I have to be ready for as well. Thus, I don't really know what to expect, but I do know that God and joy will be a part of it, and that's enough for me. I also recognize that if I still had the "four year mentality" that wouldn't be enough. Sometimes, knowing the future is the worst possible thing for man. If we know the future, then we tend to try to live in the future. We wonder what it will be like when this or that happens, instead of dwelling in and enjoying the present.

On Wednesday, I talked about how focusing on the future was focusing on a dream reality. In truth, though, the future is really a great unknown that should only lead us to joy in the present. It should show us that all we have is the present, the day to day. All we have is this moment, this chance for life. The only place and time to meet God, to live out the Christian life, are the here and the now. The chance to leave the "four year mentality" is the chance to encounter God in the closest thing we have to eternity, the present.

Daily gratitude

One of the greatest temptations we face in our lives is to be over concerned about the future or the past at the expense of the present. C.S. Lewis talks about this in his book The Screwtape Letters. In the book, the demon Screwtape, the master tempter, instructs his nephew Wormwood, who is only a novice tempter, to distract his human from focusing on the present. He encourages Wormwood to turn his human's mind to the future, because then the human will be focusing on things that aren't real, things that are purely imaginative.

Unfortunately, it's a temptation to which we are all too susceptible, and it's a temptation that steals away so much of the beauty of life. When man is solely focused on the future, everything loses it's meaning. What's the point of looking forward to future events if you can't enjoy the present? Won't you end up just looking forward to something else when what you've been looking forward to happens?

It's a trap that we all fall in - as human beings we have dreams and aspirations. In fact, it's a good thing to have goals and to not be too complacent about how things currently are. However, we can't take it too far either and end up missing out on the present. What we can especially miss out on is a sense of gratitude for everything God has given us. By looking forward, we miss out on the gift of the present.

This loss of gratitude is something I've been thinking a lot about recently, especially as I try, and sometimes fail, to live in the present moment. It's a daily struggle, and when I'm not living in the present I definitely notice that I suddenly lose a lot of the gratitude that makes the day worthwhile. If I'm too focused on where life might be heading, or what might lie in the future for my young family and myself, I forget to be thankful that I even have a young family. I begin to take for granted all the beautiful things around me in my quest for those things I don't currently have.

A true gratitude for all the blessings in our life and an over emphasis on the future cannot coexist with one another; one of these sentiments will be victorious in our souls and the other will fall to the wayside. Either we recognize the beauty of things we have now, or we lose sight of the present in order to live in a dreamworld called the future. Gratitude assumes the appreciation of a thing already possessed; we can't be grateful for something that we don't have. The future, though, is by its very nature made up of things that are not yet ours. Thus, if we are to be grateful for what we have then we have to sacrifice the dreamworld that we often create for ourselves. We must reach beyond our fixation with the future, and we must live in the present.

Gratitude is a beautiful gift given to us by God. The ability to rejoice in the fact that He loves us, to rejoice in the many evidences of His love is something specifically reserved for men (and angels). It is a beautiful part of life to be able to appreciate and offer up thanks for all the good things in life. Indeed, it would be terrible to have no one to give thanks to, to live a life where there was not a benevolent God that was the source of all our blessings, and the object of all our thanks. For, how could we offer thanks if we were not thanking someone?

However, we do have a God to whom we can offer thanks. We can take the opportunities throughout the day to offer up thanks to him in our hearts for all the blessings He's given us. We just need to get our minds out of the future and into the present to do so.

A fault for all times

Sometimes I amazed that more people aren't part of the Church. With all the evil in the world today, the majority of people seem to recognize that something is terribly wrong. Even if they don't specifically call it original sin, they know its effect. They look around and see so much suffering from divorce, murder, abortion, hunger, poverty, lies, and they assume that "that's just the way things are." They recognize that these evils shouldn't have a permanent place in this world, but for some reason they do. They are unconsciously seeing that man is fallen.

However, instead of turning to Christ, the true solution, they turn to a number of other things to distract themselves. They turn to physical pleasures, chiefly sex, to try to drown out the misery of the outside world. Or, they turn to ideologies that promise them a utopia, whether it be the socialism demanded by the Occupy Wall Street protesters or the laissez-faire capitalism so prevalent within the Tea Party. Both of these ideologies promise material salvation if only the right economic environment were present. Or, people turn to materialism, trying to ignore the evils of the world by enjoying fine food, fine clothes, the newest iPhone and the best video games.

Why isn't the love of Christ more obvious to them? Why does the infinite mercy of God not stand out to them in the midst of this worldly desert as an oasis of refreshment? Simple, it's something that's been with creation since the very beginning, since Lucifer turned towards his Heavenly Father and said "Non Serviam." Pride has always been present, and it continues to rear it's ugly head in our culture. Convincing arguments can be made that pride is at the root of all sin as it involves a fundamental rejection of God in favor of one's own self. If indeed pride is at the root of all sin, then we can also say that Christ came primarily to eliminate pride. Everything about Christ preaches humility, from the very idea that God would become man, to the fact that He would in turn die as an outlaw in order to save man. St. Paul says it best:

"Though he was in the form of God, (he) did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross." Philippians 2:6-8

Today, pride once again stands between man and God, between the world and the Church. It's pride that keeps so many from admitting they are wrong, from seeking God's mercy. So many people today will freely admit, "I'm not perfect" but then can't handle it when someone points out to them that they are sinning. They say that to call this or that a sin is to judge a person. They don't recognize that to call a sin a sin is simply to say they have done something wrong, and they need God's mercy like the rest of us. Even if they are "born this way" it simply means they are born with the propensity to sin, exactly as the Catholic Church teaches. Why then is it bad to say "you are sinner" when the statement "we all are sinners" is a commonly held fact?

However, the pride that hinders the conversion of those outside the Church is primarily the pride that is found amongst the members of the Church, especially the attitude of "I'm right and you're wrong." The reason people can't accept a Christian telling them "you are a sinner" is because they often get a hint of "and I'm a saint" from the Christian. The possession of the truth is something that leads many followers of Christ into a mindset of "I'm saved and you're not, unless you become like me." This type of pride blocks the non-Christian from seeing the mercy of God especially when Christians take a matter of discipline and elevate it to the matter of doctrine. They encounter a fellow sinner who uses Christianity as a prop for ego, rather than as a call to humility.

If we're going to convert the culture, then, we as Christians must be humble. We must learn from the words of Jesus, "Take up my yoke upon you, and learn of me, because I am meek, and humble of heart: and you shall find rest to your souls." Mt. 11: 29. If we focus on Christ, if we return to the most basic tenets of our Faith and hold true to them, we'll begin to realize how many barriers our pride puts up to those outside the Church. If we can learn humility from Christ, then others will be able learn humility as well, and in turn open themselves up to Jesus' mercy.

The moment of opportunity

For those of you who know me, you know I've been getting into the sport of rugby during the past couple of months. It's a difficult sport to get into, because its not readily available on American TV. Most of the time, I'm consigned to watching highlights on-line. However, during the Rugby World Cup, which is currently in its last week, I've tried to make an effort to find opportunities to watch more full-length games.

One of these opportunities came up this past weekend when Liz and I were able to go over to our friend Walter's house to watch one of the semi-finals in the world cup (Walter randomly had this very obscure channel, so it was very providential we were able to watch it). The semi-final was between New Zealand and Australia. For those of you who don't follow rugby, or haven't heard me rant about it, this was a match-up of the number 1 team in the world (New Zealand) and number 2 team (Australia). New Zealand is a rugby mad nation, with the sport occupying a pretty central place in the culture of the country. When the Rugby World Cup was started in 1987, New Zealand won the very first tournament as expected. However, since then, they have always come up short despite being consistently billed to be the favorites at every tournament.

So, to put it mildly, the country and the team are desperate to win this time around, and on Sunday night they showed it. They played with an intensity I've never really seen any team of any sport play with. For 80 minutes, they gave everything they had, and because of that, they're now in the final this coming weekend against France, with the opportunity to win their first World Cup since 1987. On Sunday night, against their greatest rivals, New Zealand's desire to win led them to a dominant victory over their opponents. Their intensity on the field really struck me, not just for the amazing rugby it brought about, but for its example as a situation when desire was the determining factor.

New Zealand's quest for a World Cup reminded me of St. Paul's words:

"Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. " 1 Cor. 9: 24-25

These men I watched on Sunday have trained their whole lives for these moments. They have denied themselves legitimate goods, disciplined their bodies, suffered injuries, and fought through pain just for a shot at this temporal glory. And it leads me to wonder, how serious am I in my quest for eternal glory?

That rugby game on Sunday made me realize how focused we should be on Christ, on gaining heaven. So often we slack off and believe we are doing "good enough." We don't strive for much more than where we are, we don't try to grow any closer to Christ. But what is our reward if we do? We become closer to He who loves us beyond all others. And, unlike the New Zealand rugby team, we are not alone in our quest for Glory. Whereas they must go through their workouts and challenge themselves on their own, we have the company of Christ. If we make the slightest increase in our efforts to become closer to Christ, He will pick us up and take us further into His Heart than we could have imagined.

All it takes is that we try, that we rely on His Mercy more and more each day. And though New Zealand now has a once in a life time shot at glory, we have a daily, hourly, minutely shot at Glory. Every moment of every day we're able to become closer to Christ, if we only really desired it. Each moment is our moment of opportunity, but our lack of desire keeps us from taking advantage of these opportunities. We lose sight of the great opportunity for love we have because these moments of opportunity are so repetitious. Because we are constantly presented with the opportunity to love God, we figure we'll do it at some other point!

However, if we truly desired the Glory the comes from loving Christ, then we would recognize every moment as another opportunity, one more chance, to love Jesus. Like New Zealand, we would rise to the occasion, give each moment 100%, and be victorious in our quest for Christ. We must ask Christ to give us this desire, we must rely on Him to inflame us with a determination to run the race to the end. After all, if a group of men can be so determined to gain a rugby championship, shouldn't we be exponentially more determined to gain the crown Christ wishes to give us?

Same ol', same ol'

Often times on this blog I try to write about particular themes that various circumstances in my life have caused me to think about. I've written about the active life, work, family life, community, and a number of other things. Indeed, sometimes I worry that I begin to harp on the same old things over and over again. In fact, as I've been thinking about what to write today, I had been planning to write a very similar post to "God is in the Details".

However, I hesitated because I've already written about the necessity of faithfulness in the small things. I've already given my thoughts about how important the nitty gritty details are. This may be what I am thinking about right now, but I already wrote about it in July, so shouldn't I give my readers a break? Shouldn't I write about something new in order to prove how intelligent and witty I am?

It struck me as funny, though, this impulsive instinct to try to write on something new. I supposed it's a result of being on the internet constantly, where new material is continuously being produced on the websites I visit. However, as I began to think more about this phenomenon, it occurred to me that that wasn't what I wanted to do at all. I don't want to constantly be producing new ideas, since it's the new ideas that tend to get you in trouble. Rather, safety lies in the old ideas.

As a culture, we have a genuine obsession with the new, the different, and the unique. But what about enjoying the familiar? Why must something be left behind when it becomes familiar? Indeed, it is often the most familiar of things that have the most profound depths for us to explore. For instance, what could possibly be more familiar than sunrises and sunsets? These two things happen every single day, one at the beginning and one at the end. Yet, we often still remark about the appearance and disappearance of the sun. The beauty of such a natural phenomenon regularly takes our breath away. If anything, we gain more appreciation for sunrises and sunsets as time goes on because they become reminders for us that there is something beyond the daily turmoil of life. Their consistency becomes a thread that ties together so many times in our lives. The repetition becomes a foretaste of the eternal consistency of heaven.

New things certainly have a beauty all their own; the enjoyment of a new hobby, the excitement of a new relationship, or the mystery of a new life. But the old things deserve their enjoyment as well. So, I don't want to give you a constant stream of new topics, dear reader. No, be sure to expect that often you will find me talking about the active life, work, family life, community, and a number of other things. They'll be the same ol' things, but perhaps with a different light on them. They are the things worth talking about, the things worth revisiting. They are the things in life that matter the most and that make life worth living. Indeed, this is the main reason the Faith is fundamentally a relationship with Christ, it is something that should be consistently lived out over one's life time. Yes, there are deathbed conversions, but those are extraordinary and are not meant to be the ordinary way of living. Rather, we are called to consistently live out and think about the same truths over and over again through our lives.

Of course, there is a little bit of irony in this post as I did end up writing about a totally new topic, namely that we shouldn't always be writing about new topics. But it's an important point to make: rich topics deserve revisiting. We shouldn't be seeking after the new just to become popular. Don't take my word for it, though. Listen to the Pope. I'll leave you with his words from his address on the 45th World Communications Day:

"The task of witnessing to the Gospel in the digital era calls for everyone to be particularly attentive to the aspects of that message which can challenge some of the ways of thinking typical of the web. First of all, we must be aware that the truth which we long to share does not derive its worth from its “popularity” or from the amount of attention it receives. We must make it known in its integrity, instead of seeking to make it acceptable or diluting it. It must become daily nourishment and not a fleeting attraction. The truth of the Gospel is not something to be consumed or used superficially; rather it is a gift that calls for a free response." 

A different kind of life

"Live as free men, yet without using your freedom as a pretext for evil; but live as servants of God." 1 Peter 2: 16

Sometimes in my life it really strikes how weird it is to be a Christian. Ways of thinking begin to change when you follow Jesus Christ, and they often change so subtly that you only realize you are different when you suddenly run into someone who believes the prevailing opinion of the day, and they just can't understand you.

This happened to me last week as I was getting my hair cut, of all things. While not normally a setting for extended intellectual conversation, I found that this particular time the conversation with the woman cutting my hair did turn to philosophical topics. I suppose this is natural considering the simple question "What do you do?" immediately leads into a discussion of the abortion debate. However, as we conversed, the topic slowly turned to the liberal arts, philosophy, teaching, and the meaning of life in general. I kid you not, we did end up discussing what should be important in our lives. This came about because she asked about my education, and she couldn't understand how someone could go to college for four years to get a degree that wouldn't automatically land them a job. In fact, she went so far as to say it was "irresponsible" for someone to spend all that time and money to get a degree that would not return the investment of money.

It was at this point in the conversation that I realized exactly how far apart we were, and it made me think of why I had gone and gotten a degree in Philosophy with a minor in Theology. She was right, of course, that these two degrees don't exactly scream "high paying job just out of college." So, why was it that I had chosen to study the liberal arts? As I sat in the chair, I thought about the term "irresponsible" that she had used. Was it "irresponsible" of me to take on debt my family and I would have to pay back when the degree I got for that debt wouldn't pay for itself?

Of course, it would have been irresponsible of me to do this if the sole goal of a father was to provide for the material well being of his children. Fortunately for me, I believe a father is a lot more than that. A father's most important duties include introducing his children to Jesus Christ, forming their imaginations and intellect so they love and appreciate the Creator and His creation, and teaching them right from wrong so that they might live good lives. The financial consideration is second to all this. And there was my answer: I had not gone to college in order to provide for my children materially, but I had gone to college to provide for my children spiritually.

When I told the woman this, I believe she was very confused to say the least. She was quiet for a while, and then she said to me, "Well, that's a completely different way of thinking about things." Indeed, she was right, not many people think like this. When you're a Christian, the priorities should and do shift. This means that we must come to value things based on the value they have in the spiritual world and not the value they have here in the material. Now, I'm not saying I'm perfect and always value the spiritual over the material; I can assure you there are still plenty of material comforts I am attached to. What I am saying is that to be Christians, we must experience at least the beginnings of this fundamental shift in worldview. As disciples of Jesus, we are called to put aside worldly things, and "live as servants of God" as St. Peter says.

The scary thing is that this call of Christ has drastic practical implications. We cannot be Christians on Sunday and live the rest of our lives as non-Christians. Christianity, the living out of a relationship with Jesus Christ, is something that relies on and affects every aspect of our existence. This means that we must be disciples of Christ in our work, in our leisure, in our relationships with other people, in the managing of our finances, in the raising of our children and in our reflecting upon the world. We are called to a great calling; we are called to become fully immersed in Christ. By necessity, this will make us different from others.