Tonight I am feeling bored and stressed at the same time. I have tons to do, but don't feel like doing anything and feeling like I need NEED to do something. I don't feel this way often because normally I have so much to do that I don't have the opportunity to feel bored. This feeling is more than boredom, its sort of hopeless too. I have been off of work this week and I have had the chance to pause and feel the title wave of life hit me. Work is beyond out of control, it is scary. I am sort of digesting the feeling of dissapointment from Arkansas not passing the medical marijuana law on election day.
This is a shitty way to feel on Thanksgiving. A day I should take a moment to take stock of all the blessings in my life and be thankful, I spend in self-pity. I can't say this is the first holiday I have felt this way, doubt it will be the last. I do have so much to be thankful for. I have a wife that I love and loves me. We are unquestionably each others best friend. No one knows me like her. The best part about our relationship is how she makes me better. Some how, in ways that I know she doesn't realize and I don't understand, she tears me down and builds me up at the same time. She makes me want to serve her more and more every day. She makes me want to give more and more of myself to her. She challenges me; she pushes me to improve. I want nothing more than to help her, to take away everything that brings her harm.
I wish she had the experience I have with my job. As horrible as my job is at times. As difficult as it is to deal with the children and families in horrible situations, it makes me appreciate all the blessings in my life. I guess in that odd way, every day of my life is Thanksgiving.
"If you want to be happy, really really happy, use your talents to serve others." - Eduardo Verastegui
The ramblings of a man who fell away from the practice of his Catholic faith, only to return upon the realization that he could no longer call himself Catholic without being fully in union with the Magisterium of the Catholic Chirch. This is about growing up Catholic and growing as a Catholic.
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Monday, November 12, 2012
Really?
Since the election last week I have found myself thinking more and more of Blessed Mother Teresa. To say I don't understand how America could vote to re-elect President Obama is an understatement. What I feel mostly is betrayed. I don't know if I feel betrayed by my own naivety or by everyone (teachers, politicians, friends, family, MYSELF) who ever tried to convince me that America was this grand idealistic conception that somehow, maybe even through the intervention and grace of God, had cemented itself as the one people that could (with apologies to William H. Buckley, Jr.) stand athwart the tempest of history. I don't know if America ever was the great idealistic nation that politicians of all stripes try to sell it as, but unquestionably it is not now.
Not to say I was sold on Mitt Romney as president. I had no delusions that he would be able to stem the financial tidal-wave of debt or bridge the ever-widening gap between the left and the right. But he was something more than the lesser of two evils. I didn't vote for either McCain or Obama in 2008 because I couldn't decide which would be the lesser of the two evils (and by evil I mean horrible president). Romney appears to be an exceptionally nice guy and he has a brain for business that would serve this nation well. Those qualities plus he had Paul Ryan as his running mate made me decide to vote for him. I admire Mr. Ryan because he appears to be the only politician that is willing to have a serious discussion about that financial tidal-wave. Plus, as the priests on the Catholic Stuff You Should Know podcast pointed out, he gives the most authentic Catholic answers to questions of any politician in my memory.
It is more than just the particulars of the candidates that has me feeling betrayed, it is how the campaigns were run. President Obama did not run his campaign on the issues that face us as a nation and how he would address those issues. President Obama's campaign sought to fracture Americans along gender, racial and economic lines. Mr. Romney's campaign was about how he would solve the issues that face us as a nation. Whether Mr. Romney's plan would solve any problems is not the point. If America truly was this grand pillar, this shinning city on a hill, President Obama's campaign would have had him run out of office on a wave of national pride. But that didn't happen.
So I have been thinking about Blessed Mother Teresa. I have been wondering what she thought about the state of politics and society in India during her decades of service to the poorest of the poor. I can only imagine it disgusted her, even more than what America is/has-become does me. I pondered how she made it, not how she dealt with the human suffering she encountered daily, how she worked to help those people in a society that cared less about them than the America cares about those on the margins of society. I wondered how she had the strength to not loose focus, to not lose hope.
Then I decided to radically change my heart. To search for those things in my heart that I was grasping onto in a desperate attempt feel secure and feel in control. I decided to eradicate those things from my life, from my mind and from my heart. To focus ever more intently on God. I decided that there wasn't anything in this world worth giving myself to and my only hope was to give everything I am to God. Only through God's grace can we change lives and through each of these lives change this world. Pray with me that more people will listen to God's call to become those persons and that each of us will look beyond ourselves and dedicate our lives to the service of others.
"If you want to be happy, really really happy, use your talents to serve others." - Eduardo Verastegui
Not to say I was sold on Mitt Romney as president. I had no delusions that he would be able to stem the financial tidal-wave of debt or bridge the ever-widening gap between the left and the right. But he was something more than the lesser of two evils. I didn't vote for either McCain or Obama in 2008 because I couldn't decide which would be the lesser of the two evils (and by evil I mean horrible president). Romney appears to be an exceptionally nice guy and he has a brain for business that would serve this nation well. Those qualities plus he had Paul Ryan as his running mate made me decide to vote for him. I admire Mr. Ryan because he appears to be the only politician that is willing to have a serious discussion about that financial tidal-wave. Plus, as the priests on the Catholic Stuff You Should Know podcast pointed out, he gives the most authentic Catholic answers to questions of any politician in my memory.
It is more than just the particulars of the candidates that has me feeling betrayed, it is how the campaigns were run. President Obama did not run his campaign on the issues that face us as a nation and how he would address those issues. President Obama's campaign sought to fracture Americans along gender, racial and economic lines. Mr. Romney's campaign was about how he would solve the issues that face us as a nation. Whether Mr. Romney's plan would solve any problems is not the point. If America truly was this grand pillar, this shinning city on a hill, President Obama's campaign would have had him run out of office on a wave of national pride. But that didn't happen.
So I have been thinking about Blessed Mother Teresa. I have been wondering what she thought about the state of politics and society in India during her decades of service to the poorest of the poor. I can only imagine it disgusted her, even more than what America is/has-become does me. I pondered how she made it, not how she dealt with the human suffering she encountered daily, how she worked to help those people in a society that cared less about them than the America cares about those on the margins of society. I wondered how she had the strength to not loose focus, to not lose hope.
Then I decided to radically change my heart. To search for those things in my heart that I was grasping onto in a desperate attempt feel secure and feel in control. I decided to eradicate those things from my life, from my mind and from my heart. To focus ever more intently on God. I decided that there wasn't anything in this world worth giving myself to and my only hope was to give everything I am to God. Only through God's grace can we change lives and through each of these lives change this world. Pray with me that more people will listen to God's call to become those persons and that each of us will look beyond ourselves and dedicate our lives to the service of others.
"If you want to be happy, really really happy, use your talents to serve others." - Eduardo Verastegui
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)