Christian Perception

So many things in the Christian life are about perception. I will give a few examples, and please remember suffering is redemptive!:

Due to computer malfunctions, only 1/4 of my math lab was printed, and so me and my group only got 1/4 of the points. It would have all been a rather simple fix except that the computer was unable to save the file, so we had to do it again. Now, to the grade-grubbing girl in my group this was horrible. "Maybe we won't get full credit! Maybe we won't be able to figure it out again!" Oh! Ye of little perseverance! What a great opportunity to humble ourselves, one ought to think. We did all of the work, knew all of the stuff, and we didn't get the grade for it. We were cheated! What a wonderful opportunity to endure! And of course, as it always does, things turn out wonderfully if only you let God make it so. We re-did 2 hours of work in 30 minutes and got to go up to our math teacher's office, where he was sitting with his lights out on his computer. He got up, after I alerted him that his stapler was out of staples, and he says "it's dark in here! Oh wait, I didn't turn the lights on".

Lately I've been pondering the plights of parish priests. They must be very lonely people: they live, without a wife, with few friends who don't view him primarily as their priest... they live alone. But what a gift that really is! Mary was given an immense gift in remaining a virgin because she didn't have to complicate her life with sex. I'm surprised college students haven't realized this... Priests are given the gift of not having sex! So too, they are given the gift of being alone. Thomas a Kempis is unrelenting in his prohibitions against frivolous conversation: only those who love silence can break it; only those who hate company can have it. If we love any of these things we close ourselves off to the love of God. Now, I'm not saying that these men are never a little annoyed with their gifts; the likely feel as if they were the wife who received a washing machine for her birthday. But such wives are overly attached to material goods, and so too such priests are overly attached.

I have to walk 2 miles to mass on Sunday and 3 miles to confession on Saturday, and because of my club feet I often find myself limping around hoping to not step on my foot the wrong way and send pain shooting up to my knee, and then I screw something up from limping all the time, and it all goes down hill very quickly. But what an opportunity the Lord has given me! I can trust in him to make my walks bearable. And again, such trust is always rewarded in this world, but even our consolations you have to be prepared to receive. There is a joy which comes with giving yourself to God! Hearing a leaf scuttle across the pavement, or being able to crush little cherries falling from the tree by your foot, or having somebody say "hi" to you; what gifts from God! God knows just how to please us... he made us!

You'll never be able to bear any suffering if you insist upon the misery of it to yourself. If you insist on the necessity of what you don't have, if you dwell on the urge (wrong, or often times completely legitimate, right and healthy) that isn't satisfied in you. You have to mediate on the goodness of the Lord! You have to mediate on how good He is to you! Is it any wonder that the Psalms, despite the rather undesirable life the Jews lived, are constantly filled with commands to meditate on the goodness of the Lord, to Love him, etc. I stopped observing feast days while praying the LoH for a while because the actual psalms often come from the First Sunday's psalms, and they are just obnoxiously gushing with praise of God. What a foolish man I am!