An Observation

Within my heart I sometimes feel a slight hint of inferiority or a twinge of mediocrity when confronted with conspicuous vulgarity and rudeness.

During the last couple of years earnest prayer has entered my life. Praying benefits both the human face and the human soul. Each day my suspension and contempt for commercialism grows. I try to add more fairness and social justice to my life. I am amused and bewildered by the rhetorical games used to try and influence me into buying this product, supporting this cause. Almost every day I confronted with canvassers on the street asking for help to feed the children, save the Chesapeake Bay, save the environment. Everyday I am polite, keep walking. We live in a society where being an impetuous baby, enthusiastically, bombastically is encouraged and where we hope there is someone to keep us out of dangerous mischief. I attend Mass daily because I like how I feel while I am there and immediately after as I leave the sanctuary and return to the brutish world of consumerism and selfishness. Society now is concerned with fetching this objecting, creating that spectacle. Manners, morality, propriety are discarded or labeled hypocrisy by many. It is a time when profanity dominates our lives; violence defines us; our world has duplicated the informality and lawlessness of a toddler’s nursery. Commercialism wants us to be impatient, impertinent fools, buying and wanting recklessly without thought or consideration. Commercialism rewards us by reminding each item we purchase will immediately be out of date, need to be replaced. Commercialism encourages selfishness and jealousy.

I have been foolish: I think a Christian can learn much when we stop talking and simply observe ourselves and people around us with an open mind. I am contrite: I ask myself if I remembered to ask God for forgiveness. Incorporating Christ’s social justice teachings into daily life is easier said than done sometime. Every block there is some new need which asks for a response, monetarily or human acknowledgment. The love which Christ encourages us to develop and share is difficult and in many ways in direct opposition to this culture. It is amazing that after two thousand years Jesus Christ remains a radical, a rebel.

Developing and sharing Christ’s love and fellowship takes time, effort, patience. Charity, Humility, Obedience are difficult to learn and practice. But, they provide a wonderful foundation for a loving relationship with God; they provide a wonderful framework for considering a vocation; they provide an outline to refer to when we prepare for confession.

Christ encourages us to use our hearts, minds, souls to search out the divine within each of us, to seek the good in each of us, to share our goodness, our hope, our faith. The imagination can and should be a tool used to move each one of us closer to God; all that we do should promote this. With adequate contemplation Christ’s social teachings can help improve our lives.

Before the piano sounds, before the wisecrack always remember to pray.