Am I A thinking and Writing Catholic?

I am thinking and writing about God and my faith; I have naturally been
excommunicated by many of my old acquaintances and friends because since immediately before my conversion I reduced the amount of contact I had with many of them. It was really simple. I stopped calling and sending emails. It was quite painless actually. No profanity or angry protestations were exchanged. I simply drifted away. I am a person who likes to talk and if I am not concentrating I tend to mumble and speak under my breath as a consequence many new acquaintances often ask me to repeat my sentences which I do. It is with new people that I learn about me and how I move through this world.

My thoughts are often on God, my Faith, and living a life of love, compassion, and social justice. I feel exhausted after confronting the arrogance, ignorance, avarice, confusion, indecision, and anxiety of modern living. This list changes each day, it contracts and expands everyday. This list reminds me of my schooldays when I was learning how to say and spell these words. I never then thought that my life or anybody’s life could exist with the extremity of any of those “dollar” words. My schooldays were filled with reading books, playing basketball, running track and wondering about how great and grand the future would be. As a child I imagined a loving safe world of happy church going people.

As an adult I discovered that life exists within close proximity of confusion and indecision. Hesitation is often the greatest ally. We all do need time to think, to ponder, to imagine.

The more time we spend in prayer or in service to God the more our lives are enriched. The more we stop thinking about acquiring new bric-a-brac and start living our lives following in the footsteps of Jesus the better our lives will be. Consumerism is noisy. Consumerism preys on insecurities. Consumerism likes agitation and anxiety.

We must remember patience. We must remember kindness. We must remember God is quiet, loving.

As adults life presents many journeys, many routes. There are often many things that we desire to do and as many obstacles. And so the trip to the coast is organized in conjunction with this celebration, those weather conditions, those boat rides, that house party, seeing those people while not seeing these people and eating at that new restaurant mentioned in some magazine. Both the fragility and perplexity of the journey is lost, hidden beneath the weight of the plan. Life is made up of choices and choices have been made. As adults life often encourages us to stop and examine the wildflowers and tall grass that we are trampling on as we move toward our destination.

At some point we must stop, allow ourselves to linger in the love and grace of the Lord. It is good to be a spiritual visitor, to allow yourself a moment to ponder a passage from Scripture, some ecclesiastical doctrine, or the life of a particular saint.

As adults we must remember all the goodness and love that God has given to us and we must find ways to share that goodness and love with others.