New Findings

Life takes us down roads we could not even foresee, then the road seems to turn and we wait for everything to kind of make it around the turn without losing everything from before. Sometimes life is like this, a rollercoaster that we feel we cannot control. Yet, there are simple principles to this life, and they are these: love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and your neighbor as yourself. Everything else flows from this command. I admit though that I often get caught up with the "caesars," with the rulers of this world who demand their pay, and the others who provide for us, but only at a price. It's funny how I grew up hearing the importance of the Great Commandment, and at the same time phrases such as, "Money makes the world go round." Even now I struggle to reconcile these two realities. I am someone who pursues life one hundred percent, whether that mean my career, my education, my faith, my friendships, or my sense of self. I cannot just go halfway, and I feel that is what this dichotomy calls of us. I have always heralded the beauty of finding that which you love to do, then figuring out a way to get someone to pay you for doing it. This I may have found. Yet do I go? Going holds so many implications now. What ever happened to the transition between eighth grade and high school. Shoot I didn't have to do hardly anything and it was done. There were no regrets, no second thoughts, after I had made "my" decision. Now I have second thoughts even before I make decisions. So, to give myself a little advice, and to anyone else who might be listening in. Follow your heart, if an opportunity arises and your heart is cool with it, GO, live your Personal Life Story! If not, keep praying, keep searching, walk with your eyes open, do the work, and soon you will find what you seek. For truly our Lord tells us, SEEK and you will find, ASK and it will be given, KNOCK and the door will be opened to you. We play a role in this our life stories, would that we would have the courage to stand up and live them. May God grant us all the grace and courage to live every day as if it were our last.

Moderation

I am reading a book by the acclaimed author of "The Alchemist" Paulo Coelho. It is called "La Quinta Montana" and within he describes the life of the prophet Elias, whose name in English is Elijah. Coelho fascinates me with his ability to make the biblical story to come alive, to describe what it must have been like for the young Elijah to confront the beautiful Jezabel, who undermined the Christian foundations of Israel through her marriage to the king. One particular point Coelho vivifies is that of Elias' mentality. He illustrates that Elias must have realized that he was called to a higher role than those around him, and that fulfilling his role as a prophet would ultimately bring him great joy. But in the short-term he observed his contemporaries "traveling the seas" and "making love to random women" and experiencing through this a great pleasure. Elias knew that this pleasure was short-term, and yet he yearned for the simple life outside that of a prophet. I think that is our way so often, we settle for something, and then God shows us there is so much more that He has in the plan for us, and it is in those moments that we either balk or flourish. Yet flourishing usually does not mean following an easy road. The easy road is looking only to our own, personal, more short-term goals and not opening our minds and hearts to the will of God in our lives. This is the harder road.

Think about any sinful practice. C.S. Lewis makes the point that though the one who does not partake in the practice may be shamed by his peers, he ultimately chooses the more difficult road. It is easy to give in to sin, and so in resisting we grow stronger, if we always give in, we build no moral character nor resolve for future decisions. Seeing that we may be missing out on some level of pleasure in the practice, as Elias surely did, does not make it any easier for us to resist. But this is the road to which we are called. It is okay to acknowledge that some sinful practice, or even a worldly indulgence that is not necessarily sinful, would bring us pleasure, but we must recognize what that pleasure may do to us both physically and spiritually. Then in the end, we must remember who we are choosing for. And so I challenge myself and all of you; choose wisely.

TM

Reflections

First of all, thank you to all of you who continue to read this and inspire me to share the inner workings of my own inexplicable mind...

Unfortunately, issues in life are never 100% clear. Anyone who tells you any differently is trying to sell you something. I got that from somewhere but do not know exactly where to attribute it, so I will just say that I claim a second use of the words that illustrate this truth. C.S. Lewis says that the devil likes to send errors into the world in pairs, in order that by avoiding one in particular we draw nearer and nearer to the other. There is never an easy choice in life for this reason. We have to consider all the angles, what everyone has said on the issue, and in the end make the best decision possible according to our moral standards.

Take Iraq. It must have been a difficult decision to go to war, yet when the time came to stand up and take action our leader did it. And surprisingly, many congressmen supported him who ordinarily would not follow his lead. They were not swayed by party loyalties, but instead according to their own means of decision-making came to vote in favor of the war as well. Now many of them cut out, by saying the president has not gone about in the correct way, even though they endorsed his actions, and likely would have pursued the war in a similar way themselves.

Yet there are others who sit and feel self-justified in that they have always stood against war in any form. "I am a pacifist, and this decision by the president has disrupted the lives of these poor people in the Middle East." Now we must leave, then make more treaties, maybe do some hand-holding and kumbayah, and pretend 9/11 never happened!!!

The truth is that American leaders are doing their best to ensure our rights to life in this country, by taking out those who would threaten it. And these Islamic extremists threaten us with justifications that are disputed at best. So we are supposed to treat these people like they have concrete objectives, that they actually ultimately seek what is best for all of us? I think that naive idea was destroyed the moment they piloted two planes into the World Trade Centers, or maybe when Saddam Hussein murdered his own people using chemical and biological agents.

I know many people who have been affected by this war, and I know their feelings. I know they would gladly fight for this cause, because they believe that human life is more important than the psychological well-being of any group of people. We must look beyond these feelings, and consider the reality. If we do, and then compare what we see to the moral standards lying in our hearts and our minds, I think we begin to see the reality that we must act to eliminate this threat.

And I would stand strong if called along with my American brothers and sisters who defend our land today. May God bless and be with them and all of us in this time, and help us to see through any facade or lie to the truth. For this will truly set us free.