It is amazing how quickly life can change, how new challenges and opportunities can arise in a moment and be gone the next. Friends come and go from your life, and acquaintances become friends and friends, strangers once again. This can be a sad evolution, but the truth is that some will never leave. Some will stay. Some will be there for you in your time of deepest need. Some will hold you in their hearts no matter where you are, how far, nor long out of touch. Love reigns at the heart of these persons, and rains upon you in their presence. I love the reading from St. Paul that expresses so concisely what I falter in saying here; "That in the end three things remain: faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love". We yearn for it, we seek it in many different places; forces within the world try to tell us that we may find it in places that end in bottomless pits that swallow our lives and shackle us to habits, addictions, and obligations we never bargained for.
I praise the Lord for the ways in which He has protected me from these, and I believe it my calling to explain these freeing truths to others. Yet, not everyone is open to hearing the truth. They have their own truths, their own modi operandi, that may or may not be consistent with that which runs through all things. In these moments I wonder at the challenge of a greater love that condemns the action of the loved one, and yet shows a great love for him in that his understanding that it is a false truth he follows, will set him free to live life in a way that will be so much more fulfilling. But in the moment, it is painful. Arguments may arise because the other feels threatened. Ad hominem threats may be thrown at you because you believe different things. Why is it that I can walk into a room and show only love toward others and come away having been insulted and disrespected for who I am? Why is it so threatening to others that I seek to live a greater life? I desire to be a part of a greater story, to change this world for the better. I refuse to accept that this world is going to "hell in a handbasket", or that recession or some form of global warming will somehow kill us all. This world is temporal anyway, and our lives upon it are not our own. So why do we insist on taking the wrong approach on so many different levels and then wonder why we are so depressed and cannot comprehend why anyone would go to Church, or ascribe to any form of religion besides that of narcissism. I want mine, and that is all. This will take us nowhere. Would that we would all reach out to those around us, starving for love and attention and show them what Christ's love is really about, and hence what life is really about. Other paths that we follow in this life, like career, vocation, hobbies, jobs, volunteer experiences, should all serve as a means to sharpening our work toward this greater goal.
Jesus is present in this world, but if we do not truly live for Him, how can he reach out of our hearts to touch others'?
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