Tapioca and Life

               This past weekend I made a trip to Conception to collect my belongings. The journey was a long, expensive, and quite fun… I guess it’s a little bit like life.

               The one thing that made the biggest impression upon me was a dish of delightfully delectable kolek from Simply Siam in Maryville Missouri. This warm desert consisted of tapioca sweetened with coconut milk and flavored with jackfruit. I am well-accustomed to tapioca, but have never so much as heard of a jackfruit before now.

               As I slurped down the scrumptiously slimy pearls I wondered if I would ever again have the pleasure of enjoying this dish. I wondered if I would ever taste jackfruit again. I wondered which of my classmates I would never again cross paths with. Like my desert, I greatly enjoyed the company of my old friends, but I had to think at how improbable such a meeting was.

               There is only one present moment. The rarity of the present moment makes it more valuable.  One should be fully engrossed in the moment he or she is in. My spiritual director introduced me to a Latin phrase. Age quod agis roughly translates into ‘do what you do’. It serves as a reminder to fully engage the present.  

               Living in the present is incredibly difficult to do. Aside from enjoying my tapioca, I strain to relish the situations which I find myself. I tend to desire different company, different scenery, or different activities. Viewing the present moment as a rare gift that needs unpacking or a bowl of exquisite tapioca that needs devouring helps me appreciate my present situation. Maybe it can do the same for you.

              

              

                

                

Differences

               Life outside the seminary is quite different than what I am accustomed to. This difference is best exemplified in the differing kinds of work I do. For the past three weeks I have been working with a local contractor and developer. At seminary, it was my job to study and to pray. Now, I find myself climbing ladders and driving nails.

               I enjoy being physically tired when I go to bed. At school there was emotional and mental exhaustion. It is odd for me not being required to really think. There is a big difference between thinking about where to put screws and pondering the logic of circular reasoning. Lately, I haven’t had a lot of time for such philosophic ventures, and as a result have not been reading, writing, or posting blogs. I have plenty of topics to blog about, but actually formulating how to effectively communicate those ideas is what takes time and effort

               Work at the seminary was interesting because it was constantly busy with a whole host of classes, meetings, and seminars. Outside school I am even busier, but since all of my time is consumed with one job, things feel a lot less hectic. Things are simple now. I try to enjoy that because I know that simplicity won’t last.

               I recently had a short conversation with a young man who was in a very similar position. He left his respective ministry to come home and recollect himself. He said that as hard as the move was, he found it meaningful because he had more time to focus on his relationship with God. I found this quite funny and incredibly ironic because this is the exact thing that I am not doing.

               Allow me to explain…

               For the past 3 years I have scrutinized my relationship with the divine. I have attempted to climb Jacobs latter through many and various ways. Now, for the time being, I find that I no longer need to do this. Now is a time for me to experience God in new and different ways. In seminary I attempted to take my relationship with God and make my life meaningful. I think this thinking is backwards. Instead, I think I need to draw meaning from the life I love and cherish and apply that meaning to my relationship with God.

               At school I believed that one could be spiritual regardless of the job he or she held. I do still believe this, but I now realize how wildly different spiritualties can be. Some people pray more intellectually, others emotionally, others contemplatively, others pray through their work, others through their relationships. Instead of finding God through rationality, theology, and liturgy, I think that I will be better off enjoying fog banks, sawdust swirls, and peanut butter M&M’s.

               … and any plan with peanut butter M&M’s is a good plan.

Controlling Birth Control

               If you don’t know what is going on with the government’s universal healthcare mandate which requires insurance policies to cover contraception, crawl out of from underneath your rock and get educated. Now, this doesn’t seem like such a big deal if you aren’t Catholic, but Catholics believe that the use of contraceptives is immoral. Basically, the government is requiring Catholics to violate their consciences.

               I look at this mandate through the light of two lenses. First I view it as a Catholic. Secondly, I view it as an American. As a Catholic I am sorrowful, but not surprised. Christianity has a long history of persecution. When one’s beliefs and values are counter-cultural, one can expect the rest of society to fight against you.

               If the devil is an intellectual creature –much like in C.S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters-, I think this move is brilliant. Firstly, it is an attack on crucial and very pertinent values. The next generation, will be brought to existence through sex. If our views are distorted on sex, they are distorted on life. Secondly, it is an attack on values that have long since eroded from mainstream American Catholicism. If this healthcare  program remains unchanged, it will not be a  lost battle, but an admission of a past defeat.

               I am not only a Catholic, but an American citizen, and as a citizen, the situation enrages me. I cannot see this as anything but a violation of the Bill of Rights. This issue is not about the morality of birth control, or mandated healthcare. I am concerned for my country because its constitution seems to me to have been blatantly ignored.  I wonder the broken system that allowed such a transgression.

               I think that the situation calls for civil disobedience. I wonder if and when such disobedience will occur, and if it does, whether the party will be a morally convicted Catholic, or a political tool.

               I feel very odd writing about such things. Normally, talking religion or politics is a social faux-pa. I do not think it is odd to feel strongly about such things, but in today’s age, discussion is difficult because so few people agree.  

I Hope You Dance

               This past Saturday, I enjoyed my first dance in over 4 years. I honestly could not recollect the last time I had danced. As a seminarian, we are ‘highly advised against dancing’. Having had such little practice, and having picked a partner who was equally unskilled, the dance was…bad.

               But I am a firm believer that a bad dance is better than no dance at all. If you describe the cosmos as a dance, this idea, along with a little bit of technical language, resolves the problem of evil. For those of you who don’t know, the problem of evil is basically the question why a good God allows evil to occur. While I could easily drone on about this, -and probably will someday- I think that my time is best spent elsewhere.

               Dancing is a terribly funny thing. It seems so romantic. If romance is awkward and clumsy, I guess dancing is wonderfully romantic. As I sat, I watched people spin, twirl, and shuffle their partners to a giddy ecstasy- I am not so sure that the giddy ecstasy was not alcohol related-I wondered if you could extract all the good from dancing while leaving behind all the bad.

               I think people try awfully hard to do this with life. Take sex for an example: people attempt to divorce pleasure, from consequence and responsibility. Getting old is another example. People want to forget about the ensuing insanity at the end of life. People want romance without heartache, payment without work, growth without virtue…

               I think that God created a much bigger, much more wonderful world than that. Life is nerve racking, but the consequences and responsibility make life worth living. Life can lose its romance because we expect all the joy without all the sorrow. If it wasn’t for the sweaty palms, and the butterflies in the stomach, dancing would just be a silly pattern of bodily movements.

               My point is that we should not allow our expectations to rob us of the experience of life. I guess I’m trying to say that we should all live more... We should all dance more…except you seminarians of course, because you really shouldn’t be dancing. 

Achievement Unlocked

               I am a very achievement oriented person. I like to set goals and then achieve them even if they are small insignificant things. I enjoy unlocking achievements in video games. Even though you don’t do anything ‘real’, you still get the feeling that you have accomplished something. Earning a paycheck is a very satisfying experience. I am well suited to construction because building a structure is likewise a fulfilling venture, and if you are anything like me, you may enjoy this little game: http://www.kongregate.com/games/ArmorGames/achievement-unlocked

               As rewarding as achievements things can be, I have to constantly remind myself that my value is not dependent upon what I do. I touched on this subject earlier: http://zakrzewicz.blogspot.com/2012/01/worst-part-of-getting-old.html Sometimes, through failures, God reminds us not to value our accomplishments.

               This past week at work was incredibly unproductive. In one day, I somehow managed to undo all the previous day’s work. Upon arriving at work, my boss and I quite often realize that the previous day’s work was an inch off, and it all needs to be redone. This not only is a loss of labor and materials, but it is also a loss of my patience as well.

               I think it is natural for people to think that God judges them upon their achievements, but I am quite convinced that this is way of thinking is incorrect. As much as I freak out about ‘doing’, I could only imagine what it would be like if I were not Christian. When Christ said ‘It is finished, it was the ultimate Achievement unlocked.

               If actions come from a desire for validation, they are hollow. Christians are not ‘good people’ so that God will love them. Christians are good people because of a wondrous and burning passion for life that comes from the realization that God loves people.

               Simply put, we don’t have to worry about collecting achievements. We should achieve because of the joy that comes from God’s achievement.