Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Am I Willing to Obey God

I sometimes feel, sometimes believe that the American dream is now the search for fabricated, perfected memory. Truth avoids this memory. Hope avoids this memory. Painstaking resurrected fear and animosity and anxiety and angst wait to seep into conversations, to leak into moments of quiet, moments of reflection.

Vengeance and violence are acceptable, are encouraged. Human sexuality is no longer private respected. It is part of consumerism’s ever expanding landscape. This is the world we live in filled with half unclad women and young girls gyrating and moving suggestively and everybody accepting it, looking at it, nobody cries foul, cries stop.

We are being exploited and we do not seem to notice or care. We pretend that some of this is entertainment. We pretend that all of it is harmless, that our brains are not damaged, our psyches tormented by all the rampant graphic sex and violence playing before our eyes.

I am glad to be Christian, glad to have an awareness of the trash and dangers lurking in pop culture. It is hard being a witness for God in a world that downgrades sin, upgrades wealth, privilege, greed.

Humility, charity, obedience to God are lost, are discarded practices, often untried, often untrusted. Many people talk about Jesus. Many people talk about Jesus on the Cross. Many either do not understand the story and the glory of Jesus’ life. Many do not understand that being Christian means applying the teachings of Jesus Christ to their daily existence. Many do not understand the simple idea of forgiveness. Many refuse to love their neighbors.

I am learning how to be a better Catholic, a better Christian, a more obedient, loving, loyal servant of the Lord. There are days when I feel as if I am with Jesus moving toward Jerusalem. There are days when I feel like the unwelcoming Samaritan village. I have learned the beauty of silence and prayer.

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