Hell Isn’t For Me
While I was in Drivers Ed, I learned a valuable lesson. Where your eyes go, the car goes. We’re playing the long game here on Earth. In the routine of our daily lives, thinking about where we’ll be in the life after this one can be easily overlooked. Yet, at the same time, our actions and choices within our daily routine point to where we’re oriented. I’ve never once been happy as a result of committing a sin, yet sometimes I find myself in a cycle of decisions leading me further away from the life that God has planned for me.
The design of the human mind is intriguing. Although intellectually we can grasp that sin is harmful and doesn’t lead to happiness, we still choose it on a regular basis. There are many theological explanations, but isn’t it interesting in and of itself that the human mind, without morals or guidance, will tend toward making decisions based on impulsive wants.
The challenge of the Christian life is to overcome this self-centeredness. The challenge is to respond with love when your wife is annoying you, to respond with love when you’re tired but your children need something from you, and to respond with love when another person deeply offends you.
Heaven is real, and so is Hell. When standing in the Confession line it’s easy to say where we want to end up. Yet, in the moment, when we’re out in the world confronted by temptation, our decision making process can become much more cloudy.
Perhaps the greatest irony is that in order for us to have true happiness, we have to reject things that present themselves as something good or beneficial for us. Sin always dresses itself in the robes of goodness, yet when unmasked its true destruction is revealed. By saying no to sin and denying ourself a passing pleasure, we choose to embrace and accept the lasting happiness that following God’s Will brings.
In the routine of our daily lives, we need to do things that keep us oriented to our destination of choice. Like our eyes in the car, if we look towards Hell, we’ll end up there. But if we keep our eyes fixed on the eternal good, on the fruits of Heaven, we’ll surely end up there, right where we belong.
Raising Wholesome Kids
My goal in raising Benedict is that he grow into a wholesome, mature man worthy of a great woman. The path to this ideal is filled with challenges, especially as he will face pressure from his peers and the temptations to make poor choices. I want him to preserve his honor, and the honor of those whom he associates with, so that he can present himself as a worthy gift to his wife should he be called to the married life.
There are so many messages being thrown at all of us today, that even I sometimes can find it difficult to wade through them to find the truth and I’m an adult. I know that Benedict and his peers will increasingly face more and more messages that are just wrong. As a sad result, kids will make bad choices based on those wrong messages and the consequences will be lasting.
In order to raise a wholesome child, parents have to do the difficult things. We have to put reasonable restrictions on them and help them to understand why those restrictions are there in the first place. We have to be parents, not friends with our kids. Even more importantly, we have to have difficult discussions on topics such as sexuality and drug use with our children before they get bad information from others. That may be uncomfortable, and it’ll have to happen sooner than we’d like, but it’s a fact of life.
The goal is for us to help our children mature into functioning, healthy adults who aren’t saddled with the regret and consequences of youthful indiscretions. It’s a true challenge, but a worthy pursuit nonetheless.
Raising wholesome kids has never been easy, the nature of the threats are simply changing and becoming more aggressive. Our job is to help Benedict grow into a well-adjusted, mature adult capable of making reasoned and logical choices. I’m also praying for the parents of Benedict’s future spouse, that they will be as successful as we are.
Drive Safely This Season
As the cool fall air moved into the region, I made a concerted effort to get Benedict outside more. We ran around in the yard, cleaned up our garden, and put away flower pots. He’s a determined little guy who loves his freedom, so we’d also walk the 50 yards or so of sidewalk in front of our house. Since I regularly take him on my walk with me (he rides in the stroller), he’s had plenty of opportunity to see cars drive by. During our walks on the sidewalk, he’d stop for every car, yell “HI!” and wave as they passed by. Many drivers looked and waved back, most did not.
Are we really so distracted that we miss a 3ft child waving at us as we drive by?
Driving is one of the most dangerous things that you and I do on a daily basis. Although we’ve grown complacent in our surroundings and confident in our abilities, the fact remains that driving is an activity that demands total focus. Even a momentary lapse of judgement could result in serious bodily injury or death. The complacency is what’s really getting to us. We’re too comfortable. We’re comfortable enough to text, to talk on the phone, and even to develop tunnel vision.
The result of this complacency and comfort is experienced by each of us every time we drive. Motorcyclists drive near the centerline, changing lanes without signaling, and rapidly accelerating and decelerating. Vans drive slower than expected, drift, and make sudden corrections. Motorists unfamiliar with a particular area drive erratically as they seek to balance finding their destination and not crashing. Drivers text while traveling at speed on highways, or even in dense congestion.
While this is partly a warning about the dangers of complacency while driving, it’s also a warning against tunnel vision. We often only look out the window to glare at someone whose driving habits displease us. We can’t be complacent, we can’t be comfortable, but we also can’t be solely focused on what’s ahead.
Drive safely, drive defensively, but also be aware enough of your surroundings that you can anticipate changing situations and keep your passengers safe. We need to bring safety and courtesy back to the road, and it begins when you and I get behind the wheel.
Everyone Craves Respect
The Golden Rule should be the gold standard in human relationships, but my experience tells me it seldom is. I think we’re all a bit confused about just what it means to be respectful of others. The fact remains, we all have within us a desire to be treated with respect, even when we disagree.
We live in a pluralistic society with a myriad of hot button issues. In the discussions, debates, and arguments over those issues, it can be easy to see how rarely the Golden Rule is utilized. Instead of approaching a discussion with calm collected reason and logic, we see both sides maliciously attack one another’s background, character, and intelligence.
In the marketplace, both as consumers and employees, we see companies and managers act disrespectfully towards people. Companies refuse to stand behind their product and managers fail to be open and honest with employees.
If we all agree that the Golden Rule is a great thing, then why don’t we follow it more uniformly?
The problem is that we’ve become very confused about how to apply respect in our interactions with one another. Respect doesn’t mean rubber stamping or rolling over for someone else’s viewpoint. Instead, respect insists that we see each other for who we really are, people with feelings. The Golden Rule asks that we share truth with people with whom we disagree, but without attacking them as people. It’s entirely possible to have an intellectual debate over an issue and to still be friends with your debate opponent. At their core, they’re still a human person worthy of dignity and respect.
If a company is disrespectful towards you, they’re unworthy of your business, so take your dollars elsewhere. If your employer is disrespectful, they’re unworthy of having you as an employee, so take your services elsewhere.
While we want everyone else to adhere to the Golden Rule, the only person that we can really force to change is ourselves. Although respect may not be reciprocated, set a good example. Be mindful of your interactions and treat others with the respect that they deserve.
My Own Biggest Obstacle
When your thirst for change exceeds the threshold of your objections, things start to happen. We all have a series of objections when it comes to making changes in our lives. We like things the way they are, or the cost to make this particular change is too high. While it’s convenient to place the blame for our lack of change on external factors, the truth is that we’re our own biggest obstacle.
In our quest to change everyone else, we forget that we have full sovereignty over ourselves. We have within our power the ability to control every aspect of our lives. We can choose which pains we hold on to, how active of a lifestyle we lead, what activities we spend our time on, and how we manage our relationships. The only thing that I need to improve my physical health is discipline and time. The only thing that I need to let go of pain is permission from myself. The only thing that I need to improve my intelligence is literature, which I can get free of charge at the library.
The biggest obstacle in my life is me.
Change is part physical pain, part mental block. If I choose to make reading a priority, I’m going to have to cut back on something else in my schedule that I like, such as Netflix. If I want to get my family out of debt, I’m going to have to cut back from some other area of my budget, like entertainment. If I want to break free of habitual venial sin, I’m going to have a few rough weeks of temptation and behavior correction. If I want to move past pains, I have to revisit uncomfortable memories in order to dismiss them.
Perhaps the biggest obstacle that we put up in our lives is the mental block. We should give our mind some serious credit as it holds a lot of sway in our decision making. The creative power that it possesses is often the last bit of weight that we need to tip the scale and get momentum moving in our favor. The mind tends to the negative, so it needs convincing.
One of the more common mental blocks that we give ourselves is, “You’ve tried this before and failed. Don’t bother again.” We need to recognize when our mind is limiting itself, it’s trying to save us. When we hear it tell us things like that we have to change the script. “You’ve tried this before and failed. Now you know what you need to change in your plan so you can succeed!"
External factors can make change and healing difficult, but far and away the biggest obstacle is the one that we set up before ourselves. Recognize that reality, and smash through those walls like the Kool-Aid man.
Ask God for the Big Things
Understanding God with the human mind is impossible. In order to help us bridge that gap into the impossible, we have to equate Him to something we can relate to. At various times and in different situations we may think of Him as our Dad, as a disciplinarian, or perhaps even as Santa Claus. The mistake that we make is that we pull God down to our level, instead of raising our minds to His. When we bring God down to our level, we miss out on the opportunity to truly experience His glory.
Time and time again, Scripture tells us to ask and we shall receive. Truly God hears and answers our prayers in all ways, shapes, and forms. Yet, too often we fail to be like King Solomon. When presented with an offer of anything, Solomon asked for the wisdom to lead his people. Wow! Now that’s a big ask. Not only is it a big ask, it’s the right ask. Solomon asked for a gift that he might use to serve others. He understood in some small way the capacity of God, and asked for a gift that only God could grant.
We need to be more generous in what we ask of God. While there’s certainly no limit to the number of prayers and requests we make to God, we should use those prayers to benefit others. Our lives are comfortable and easy compared to many others. This is a habit of the greatest saints in the Church: spending more time asking for graces for others than for themselves.
We also need to stop asking God for the trivial. As students, we asked for help for a test that we didn’t study for. Looking back, we asked the God who created us out of literally nothing, who built us out of two single cells, to help us circle a few right answers. We need to be more like Solomon, and ask God for the big things.
God has chosen to limit our ability to fully understand His existence, and at the same time, through the Church, has fully revealed Himself to us. In order to become the saints we were made to be, we need to stop trying to pull Him down to our level and instead let Him raise us to His. He’s capable of anything, let Him reveal His power to you.
Lean on God
It’s human nature to want to be independent. We want to be free to make our own decisions and have the dignity of supporting ourselves. Our quest to be beholden to no one begins early in our development, becoming most evident in our teenage years. While we see dependence as a weakness, the question must be asked: is it? No matter how independent we seek to become, is total independence really something to pursue? Certainly there are some worthy forms of independence such as that of financial independence or the independence of living on your own. Yet, as humans, I think it’s necessary for us to be totally dependent in one sense. We must be totally dependent on God.
There is no independence from God. Philosophically and theologically, if we were independent from God, we wouldn’t be here because His thought of us sustains our existence. But I don’t want to make this about an intellectual exercise, rather, I want to explore this as an exercise of love. We should embrace our dependance on God and love Him for it.
Benedict is now 2 years old. Little by little, he gains independence from me. Yet, even though he can do little things, he still needs my help to achieve the essential things. He can eat food on his own, but he needs me to prepare it for him. He can walk around outside, but he needs me to open the door for him. He doesn’t loathe his dependance on me. Rather, he embraces it joyfully. He smiles, laughs, and eagerly runs to me as I do all of these things for him. We should take the same tack in our relationship with God.
All of the blessings in our lives are thanks to the good graces of God. Our family, employment, finances, health, and freedom are all a direct result of God giving us those blessings. As a part of our dependance on God, we should be joyful and eager to ask for more blessings. It’s not selfish, it’s what He’s promised. Time and time again we hear in Scripture about God’s promise to provide for us, both in good times and bad.
We should ask God for the big things and for the little things. We should ask Him for help in small ways and for help in big ways. We should also always remember to give Him the praise and thanks that are due. The best way to do that is to live a life of service as He asked.
Our dependance on God is not a burden to be borne, but rather a gift to be embraced. Like any good parent, He wants to shower us with love, graces, affection, and blessings, if only we ask for them.
Change Requires Pain
There’s something very real and raw about wanting to make changes in our lives. We all want to be better than we are today. We can see our future and (hopefully) we foresee brighter days with better financial security, better jobs, better opportunity, and better quality of life. The challenge is enduring the pains that it takes to get us from where we are to where we want to be.
For the past 4 (almost 5) years, I’ve been working on my physical health. We all innately understand the challenges of weight loss and, once we achieve our goal, the challenge of maintaining it. With all of the delicious foods in the world, consistently saying no to the bad things and yes to the good things is a real challenge. My main tool for getting me to my ideal weight has been walking and tracking my daily steps, but lately I’ve added in more traditional exercises. I’ve chosen to do the 7-minute workout about five times per week. if you’re unfamiliar, you basically do twelve 30-second exercises at an intense pace. I hate every minute of it.
It’s pretty cute when Benedict comes over to hang out with me while I workout and mimics what I’m doing, but overall, it stinks. It’s difficult, it’s oftentimes painful, and it’s always uncomfortable. I know that since I’m just beginning, it’ll get easier, but jumpstarting this routine is all uphill. So why continue? Because I know it’ll get me where I want to be.
Physical health, emotional health, spiritual health, and even relational health all require us to, at times, experience difficulty, pain, and discomfort. Yet, after we push through the challenges, we reach the other side where there is increased quality of life. People never reach their weight goal and say, “That wasn’t worth it.” No one puts down a novel and says, “I wish I had spent that time watching TV.” No one spends an afternoon with their child and says, “I wish I had worked.”
The more resistance you face in making your life, or the life of your family, better, the more assured you should be of your goal. Keep pushing, it’s almost always worth it.
Evil is Real
How many times have we witnessed the great falls of those whom claim to be holy and religious? How many times have we heard of televangelists, missionaries, and people that we once regarded to be of high moral standing exposed as being other than what they claimed? For some fraction of these cases, the individuals themselves were perpetrating a fraud. For the large majority of cases, we should walk away with one lesson: evil is real.
The more good that you do in the world, the more spiritual fruit that you bear, the bigger target that you become. It’s understandable that if you’re doing good things and people are being changed by them, you’ll become a bigger target for the Devil. Taking down one prominent person does more damage with less work than trying to topple followers one at a time.
Truthfully, I don’t think many of us think about the Devil as being at work in our lives. Certainly we see war, terrorism, and other violence and tacitly acknowledge that it’s the work of the Devil, but by and large, we don’t really believe that he’s real. I even feel weird using the word “devil” in this post, as if I’m some crazy religious nut who should be dismissed by my readers as such.
That’s the thing, though. That feeling that I’ll be perceived as crazy is a sign that his work is effective. The more dismissive we are about his existence and the more complacent we grow, the easier it is for him to work. He’s subtle and subversive, working quietly until it’s too late.
He’s at work, always looking for weaknesses and flaws to exploit. He’s “prowling like a roaring lion” in our world. So if you’re out there doing good things, know that he’s looking for ways to undo them. The good that we do and the holiness that we achieve diminishes his work and effectiveness. He’s looking to take you down. Don’t let your denial of his existence give him greater influence over your decisions.
Evil is real, never doubt that. But evil is so much less than Good.
A Family of Saints
During this year’s Synod on the Family, Pope Francis canonized Louis and Marie-Azelie Martin, the parents of St. Therese. What’s particularly interesting about the Martin family is the vocations that came out of it. The Martin’s had 9 children, four of whom died in childhood. Of the five who survived, all girls, each entered the religious life. This true model of holiness in a family has me thinking, what will it take for me to raise a family of saints?
From an American perspective, I think that it’s important to address the sheer number of vocations from this particular family. I have two thoughts. First, it’s clear that the love of Christ was at the center of this family. Their faith so permeated every aspect of the family life that the only spouse any of their daughters would be satisfied with was Christ Himself. Second, I think it’s equally important to note that not every family is called so deeply into the consecrated life. I think this is the message that the Church sends with the Martin family. The religious life can be a path to holiness (and consequently, sainthood), but equally so can the married life be a path to holiness.
As for me, what can I do, working with Alison, to raise a family of saints? I think that I need to first look to myself. I need to move my spiritual life to the next level. I need to work on my prayer life so that it’s not an appointment on my calendar, but instead is precious time in my day. I need to spend more time contemplating holiness and working on my own inner flaws. I then need to share my faith with Benedict. He doesn’t see me pray in the morning because he’s asleep, so I need to find ways to incorporate the rhythm of my prayer life into the day so that we can share it together.
Like any New Years Resolution or fad diet, the allure of a rich spiritual life tempts us to run very hard, very quickly, only leading to burnout. A rich spiritual life can only be attained through perseverance, diligence, and hard work. This is something that will take a lifetime of work, placing the lowest priority on my own needs and the highest priority on the needs of Alison and my family.
It’s easy for us to see a family like the Martin’s and think that that could never be us, but what we really need to see when we look in the mirror is a future saint. No path is straight, no saint is perfect. We all mess up and we all have to decide for ourselves what kind of life we will lead. Will we embrace the difficult things today in exchange for true happiness, or will we waste our days on those that will be fleeting? We can be saints, and we can raise a family of saints, if we align our desires with the desires of God.