seeking something more

(Source: joecatholic)

One of my greatest frustrations in life is this concept about loving your neighbor. I mean, I’m kind to most people. I’m tolerant of people. I’m generally an agreeable person.  But being kind or tolerant or agreeable is not what love is. It’s a bit of it, perhaps, but only a very small bit.

My frustration is increased even more by the fact that I’m an introvert and avoid most people. I really don’t know a lot of people. By effect, I don’t really have many people to share this confusing thing called love. I mean, I guess, I can love people I don’t know in person, but that makes my problem even more complicated. How do I love people I have not seen or talked to? Do I end up just loving my conceptions of them, or can I really love them from afar? I know that we as the Church are one body, and distance is only some physical thing that is weak against our spiritual union. That is not my problem. My problem is that it’s hard to for me to separate abstract things from concrete things.

Last semester, just for fun, I read C.S. Lewis’s Out of the Silent Planet, and one of the things that I noticed is Professor Weston’s loyalty to humanity. This does not result in any goodness. As other characters from the book pointed out, Weston would happily sacrifice humans for the sake of this abstract concept of “humanity.” However, as Dr. Peter Kreeft said in one of his lectures. God doesn’t command us to love humanity. He commands us to love our neighbors. He doesn’t command us to love abstractions or concepts. He asks us to love real people with real faults and real value. He asks us to love each man and woman and child, not some vague idea in our mind of society. I was also reminded of this fact, of the need to love humans instead of humanity, when reading Centisimus Annus, or at least reading the first few paragraphs of it. John Paul II here over and over states that a big problem in modern society is that we tend to think of men as simply cogs in a machine, as simply parts of the State. That’s not what humans are according to God. According to God, each human being is someone made in His image, made with profound dignity, made so that one day he may share in the happiness and love of his Creator.

I don’t want to fall in that trap. Nice doesn’t cut it when you’re a Christian, and humanity has little value when you forget to value each human. Only love suffices and even overflows, and that I can only learn from God.

When I can imagine the lover as God and the song still holds true.

Right, it’s not January 1, but I haven’t made posts since last year. Also, today is the 75th anniversary of Chesterton’s death so I think I picked a pretty good day to come back. People’s deaths aren’t supposed to be celebrated and all, but we do tend to remember them and appreciate them more once they’ve gone. Reminds me of a quote from Chesterton, but what doesn’t?

Anyway, since I’ve been gone, let me list a few observations from recent life:

1. God is faithful. I think many Christians (and by that I mean me) tend to focus on the fact that we should we should be faithful to God without remembering that it is first God who is faithful to us. How extraordinary is that! God should have no faith in us at all, sinners that we are, but He does. We lack faith in God when we have all the reasons to have faith in Him. 

2. I have no idea what to do with my life, but God does. Why am I so anxious?

3. The Sacrament of Reconciliation/Confession/Penance is wonderful.

4. The effect of praying the Rosary is extraordinary. As soon as I stop praying it, things go downhill. As soon as I start praying again, I get a little reconversion. This cycle has happened many times. I wonder why I haven’t learned my lesson.

5. If my salvation was up to me, I’d already be in hell. Thanks to God, it is the Holy Trinity who makes us holy through the mercy of the Father, the sacrifice of the Son, and the renewal of the Holy Spirit. I repeat. God is my savior. All He needs wants is my consent and cooperation.

That is all for now.

It made me smile that you said that because that would be exactly how I describe it. In love. Normally all this being-in-love stuff would bring my mind to biological explanations about hormones. It even sounds off to say, “I’m in love with God,” but that’s really the best human words can offer. I feel overwhelmed, happy, hyper, and indescribably unbounded when I think about Him. I hope it doesn’t go away, but I sort of know that the feeling will go away some time. But, that’s what memory, faith, and a little perseverance are for. For now, though, I’ll enjoy every bit of it.

Much of my time is spent on the internet. And even with the occasional odd guy or girl, I tend to come upon certain individuals who make my time playing games and roleplaying worth my while.

The conversations rarely come upon religion. In fact, I’ve been quite convinced that a great chunk of Internet surfers are agnostic or atheist. However, I do remember one specific conversation which did turn into the subject of religion. I was actually talking to an agnostic. I think I might have asked for his beliefs, and then began discussing mine. Then, I think I explained how I find it really hard to explain why or how I believe in God. The response I received was, in my memory, encouraging. I don’t remember the exact words, but I always imagined the other person behind the screen lightly laughing, “Faith.”

I think I remember that certain conversation because it helps a little to explain my feelings. I could have been the other person chuckling to myself about my beliefs. It’s not in a way that questions it, but I do, somehow, find it humorous. I mean, nothing in my natural senses, my sight or touch or smell or hearing, can sense God. Yet, even as I write that, I can’t help but shake my head and smile to myself and think, “But I can!”

I believe in the existence of God as I believe in my own existence. I believe in a God that is good, all-powerful, all-knowing, and beautiful, as I believe that I exist. There are moments when I think of all the pain in the world, all the problems that I’ve experienced and am experiencing, and the seeming lack of justice in the world, and I ask myself why all of this is happening, but rather than question the existence of a good God, I question God for the reason of all of this evil in the world. Somehow, in everything that I do, there is a foundation that God is good, all-powerful, all-knowing, and beautiful, and I can never get myself doubt it.

I see God in the sky, in pretty pictures, in elegant paintings. I see Him in giggling toddlers, pretty little girls, and beautiful faces. I hear Him in music of all sorts, music that express sorrow and love and joy and voices ranging from those seemingly borrowed from heaven to those sincere, heartfelt notes. I read Him in inspiring books and humble blogs. I can see him in physics equations, in mathematical formulas, and all sorts of scientific puzzles. I see His hands in the kindness of others, His voice in others’ voices, His smile on others’ lips. He is everywhere, in everything, and He is always with me.

Do I seem unreasonable? Or crazy? I’m not sure. But, whatever that strange factor is that keeps me believing in Him, I thank Him for it.