Break

Last week I went up to Denver to visit Andrew and to go and see MUTEMATH live. Going to see this band is one of the greatest things I could ever do with time off. The trip was phenomenal, Nate tagged along with me, we went to go to New Belgium, we saw MUTEMATH, enjoyed adult beverages, just a fantastic trip all around. 

There's something about this song that always seems to just hit me hard, square in the chest. I'm coming down with a cold again and throughout the course of the night I have consistently woken up after an hour and a half of sleep. I'm feeling tired, groggy, sick and overwhelmed. There is so much that I have to accomplish and I feel like I'm nowhere near close enough to be able to accomplish it. My heart is heavy, lonely and tired. I look around at my life and I am forced to conclude that I'm breaking, and I'm letting myself slip further and further away from the person I wish to be. I just want to be back home, I want to be surrounded by love again and, dare I say it, I want to find someone to love. I'm in a weird place spiritually, I feel like a true battle is taking place deep within my soul. This struggle between the old and the new man. This indescribable primal fight between the flesh in the spirit is waging within me in a more powerful and tangible way than I've ever experienced more in my life. I feel constantly on the verge of tears.

Maybe that's why this song seems so powerful to me. Only tears know how to remind us we all break the same. I consider the rest of those around me and there's a temptation to think, "They've got it all together, God is really bringing it together for them." A simple teardrop is all that's needed to remind me otherwise. I guess it's important to think: everyone may seem invincible, but it's just pretend. What's even more powerful is that even Christ, God Himself, experienced this same breaking. In the death of Lazarus, in His agony, He was not above this breaking that tears make manifest. I'm sure there were times He felt overwhelmed too, I'm sure there were occurrences that pushed Him to His breaking point, but the essential difference between He and I is that He continually turned to the Father. He continually brought everything, including the "breakings" to His Heavenly Father. 

We all break the same, but we don't all mend the same. An infinite number of routes people can take to get some semblance of "healing." Some turn to self-medication, some to fantasies and escapes from reality, others in relationships. There is only one true way that we are mended though, and that is through God alone. Nothing else counts. We all break the same, and He  alone can mend us.

Find

I stumbled upon this Rihanna song by happenstance and have very quickly fallen in love with it. To cut to the chase, I feel like I'm at a crossroads yet again. My soul hurts here, my co-worker and I got into a spat this week and the words that she used cut me deep and really hurt me, which has sent me into a spiral wondering what is going on in my life, forcing me to take inventory of everything.

I'm in doubt of whether or not I should stay here. Quite frankly, these past few months have seemed to have gotten progressively more taxing and worse for the wear. My soul is restless and when I go to places like Denver or Phoenix there's something there that I know I'm lacking here: true love and acceptance. A lot of times I consider my relationships with my volunteers, my co-worker and people around me and I truly feel like I'm an island and every effort that I've put forth to make things better hasn't brought about a good return, at all. It seems as if my efforts have been discounted, that my motives have been questioned and whether or not I'm truly here for love or not. The two things that I feel like I've been lacking in has truly been brought to the surface this week. Whereas in the past this feeling that I've been having was an intangible, incommunicable dark reality, now I see as a lack of true hope and true love. The phrases that have been inundating my brain-space have been, "Where is God's love?" and "Is there anything to hope for at all any longer?"

This song, even though it is superficial and vague had called to mind a deep reality that I know I've forgotten. Love can be found, even in circumstances and realities that are hopeless. I read through Lamentations 3 and Jeremiah voices extreme and utter turmoil in his soul. When someone can write things like, "He has made my flesh and skin waste away and broken my bones," and "he has put heavy chains on me; though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer; he has blocked my ways with hewn stones, he has made my paths crooked," you know that there's some deep spiritual brokenness within. Yet, despite all of the pain, hurt, confusion and hopelessness the first portion of his treatise in the third chapter embodies, he states further, "But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end." Hope, love, those are the true underlying realities of Jeremiah's life. Despite the pain, despite the darkness, those are the things he calls to mind, that God is not done with his life. God is not done showing His love and mercy. God is not done dispensing hope in Him to His beloveds.

The simple fact is that love can be found everywhere despite the circumstances of life. Love even in the ashes, even in the despair, even in the hopelessness and that is the reason that we, that I, can continue to have hope. If you don't seek His love, how in the world can you expect to find it? Even in the hopeless situations, all that is necessary is to stop sitting and whining, and take a look around at all of the ways God is always trying to win our hearts... my heart.

Love can be found in the hopeless places, and then those hopeless places don't seem so hopeless any longer.

Matters

I've just had the writing itch all afternoon. Since I cannot fall asleep, I decided to just stop, breathe in, and write, like the good days of college when I could just write with no superior purpose or drive, but to just write for the therapy of it all. I look around at my life and where I stand currently, there are a few things that simply must be noted as the true things that matter.

God. He matters, even though my life doesn't always perfectly reflect that, He is so good to me. I sometimes forget in the hustle and bustle of day-to-day living that He is intertwined intimately with it all. Nothing happens apart from His knowledge or having His hand in it, He matters not only because of the fact that He is unequivocally, but He matters because He is to me. He has recognized me in my weakness and decided to try and claim me from my fallen state purely out of His goodness and His love.

Memories. Memories matter so much to me, not only sentimentally but also spiritually. The other day I was thinking about my good friend Melissa and just how good, virtuous and loving our relationship is/was starting with that very random but incredible sophomore year of college. The coffee nights, the random chats on AIM, her insights and wisdom reaching out and enlightening my heart and soul. Memories of the countless experiences with my friends through the years and just how God has truly blessed me with some of the world's greatest people, truly.

Friends. Friends matter, they get me, they love me and it is so beautiful. Nothing else truly needs to be said because these friends that God has so blessed me with have been my companions, my classmates and my teachers in the school of love.

Love. This can neatly be summarized simply as follows by Thomas Merton, "One thing has suddenly hit me-nothing counts except love."

These things matter, God is good.

War

I went to confession yesterday afternoon and went into the adoration chapel afterwards to pray my penance and as I was kneeling before God Himself, I just gazed up at Him. I prayed my penance and prayed, "I'm so tired of these sins God, I'm so tired of repeatedly offending You, I can't handle this any longer, my soul is ready to just burst." As I kneeled there in the silence I heard His voice, something I haven't heard in a long time. He spoke to my heart and said, "Why do you try to fight this war alone? Why don't you come to Me? You sit in your office a two minute walk away from Me and you don't ever stop to see Me. Let Me feed you again." It was quite a rude awakening, but one that I needed. How far have I let my prayer life slip this past year and a half I've been here? I look at my time at Benedictine, and yes, there my prayer life could be hit-or-miss as well, but at least there I knew how to keep Him at the forefront of everything.

There's this war that's been waging inside my soul, concupiscence has been winning far more often than grace. How can I expect to live a grace-filled life if I don't ever turn to the Giver of grace? Back and forth my soul goes, at one time aligned with God and seeking His face half-heartedly at best, then other times I simply give up and fall into vices. I cannot win this war alone, I need Him. I am the war inside, my own worst enemy is my own concupiscence but God is bigger than that. He alone can reach through my shit and pull me out, but I need to turn to Him. I'm so tired of this war, I'm so tired of walking the line between virtue and vice, I want Him to come and win this war inside of me.

Yearning

I just need to write because this has been weighing heavy on my heart for a while now, and if I don't express it, I feel like I might implode. The reality of my life is this: I just want a girl friend. That's it, I said it, I'm 'fessing up to it. This isn't motivated by the circle of my close friends having relationships, getting married, having children or anything like that, it's motivated by the fact that I just want someone to call "mine" and to have someone call me "theirs." That's it, plain and simple. Is there something so wrong with that? Is there something so wrong with me...?

On Sunday a group of teens were talking with me, granted, they were immature girls in high school but regardless, stuff hurts. As we were talking, one of them noticed my tattoo and said, "Why do you have tattooed love wins? You haven't seemed to have much luck with it." Ouch. Yet, that is my reality, plain and simple no matter how you try to slice the deck or justify the situation I'm left with the one overwhelming reality that I have only had one "girlfriend" in my entire existence that lasted for little over two months. Every other failed attempt has left me more scarred than the last leaving me with this intrinsic doubt which, like it or not, has come to define my life and my lack of romance: I must not be good enough for anybody who I truly like.

If I was to be totally honest and throw everything out on the line, I would be forced to say that all I really want is someone to love and to be loved in return. That's it. The other night I had this incredible dream that I was walking hand-in-hand with a lady (who this lady was, I don't know) but just the mere fact that we were walking and I was holding her hand was so incredible to me. I woke up from that dream and quite frankly, didn't want to face the rest of the day, if I would have had things my way, I would have tried to go back to sleep to recapture that. I just want someone to be able to, dare I even dream it, hold as we just watch a movie, listen to music, it doesn't matter! I want someone to fall in love with. This is so simple and for some people the reality of dating is just a normal part of life, girlfriends walk in and out of some of my friends' lives like water flows through a river, but that is not the case for me. This is not meant to sound like a search for pity or anything like that, this is meant to simply say one thing, and that is that I so deeply desire romantic love with a woman. That's it. It's what I dream about, fantasize about, hope and pray for yet no matter what I do it always seems to slip through my fingers, like some elusive mystical treasure.

Am I wrong for wanting this? Is God simply saying to me, "Sorry kid, no luck for you, suck it up, move on." Have I been deluding myself the past four years of my life being assured of my vocation to the married life?

I JUST WANT SOMEONE TO LOVE.

Beautiful

As of late I've been obsessed with Owl City's new album, "All Things Bright and Beautiful." The music is light-hearted, whimsical and uplifting. Adam Young has a gift of being able to just paint such vivid mental images. The album's title is so fitting as each and every song is so bright and, well, beautiful. There is such a need for true beauty in our society today and we have become so numb that we have a hard time discovering and recognizing true beauty.

I took a course in college on Logic and Nature in philosophy. My professor for that class was a snide, self-righteous man who always seemed to have an answer for everything. Once in class he posed a question: "Is beauty in the eye of the beholder?" The general compulsion of the class was to answer, "Well, yes, what some may see as beautiful, others may not." He shook his head and was utterly disappointed in us. "What about music, is there an intrinsically better type of music out there than others?" he asked. People began to become indignant, "No, absolutely not, it's all up to taste." He once again shook his head and said, "So, beauty, taste, it all just boils down to the interpretation of the individual?" We seemed happy with that philosophical conclusion and my professor moved on, very visibly disappointed in our conclusions.

For the longest time I was so confused by that, what did it matter? So I don't like country, I don't say that it's an inferior form of music because it's not Beethoven. It wasn't until recently that the gravity of that little conversation in class finally impacted me, and it made sense.

Beauty comes from fulfilling and meeting the intended ends of any given nature or thing. If there is a true order to the world, then there must be true ends. For humanity, our true end is virtue, both natural and supernatural. The reason my professor was so disappointed with our response to the simple question of whether beauty is in the eye of the beholder or not boils down to whether or not we understood that there is such a thing as absolute truth. We all have a view of the world, the point my professor was driving at was that there has to be a greater truth, above and beyond our own confined views, a truth which is perfect. Within the light of this truth, beauty finds itself waltzing hand-in-hand with fulfilling true ends. When we hear music for example, it has to follow a certain rhythm, a certain coordination of notes, instruments, voices and emotion in order to be recognizable and truly beautiful. Scratching keys on a car is not music. Kicking against a trash can haphazardly causing a ruckus does not make it music. There has to be meaning to beauty, it has to reach a specific end. Our beauty doesn't lie in our outward appearances, our eloquent words, it lies instead in whether or not our lives are lived virtuously.

How does this tie back to Owl City? It ties back like this: there is a crisis of beauty in our world today, and we need to recapture it. I appreciate Owl City's music because it, in its own way, is beautiful. The melodies are perfectly placed, the notes correspond and dance rhythmically creating a wondrous feast for the ears. Our souls are hard-wired to be drawn to the beautiful, because beauty is simply an echo and reminder of the much deeper reality of Who Truth is. In and through his music, Adam Young is participating in beauty and by writing good, beautiful music, he is in turn reflecting and sharing the beauty of God. We too are called to this beauty! Whatever we find ourselves in, being a student, being a part of the workforce, being a mother, being a brother or a sister, a son or a daughter, be beautiful and virtuous in those callings! That is where we will find our beauty, that is where God can truly work to draw others to Himself through the beauty we participate in with Him.

True beauty in this world, whether we find it in well-written books, melodious music or even in nature surrounding us is meant to point us back to the author of all beauty, of all truth, God Himself. St. Paul knew the importance of recognizing the true, the good and the beautiful as a Christian, consider his letter to the Philippians, "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things." We are surrounded by it, but how often do we truly stop, breathe it in and revel in the beauty that surrounds our daily lives? Seek beauty.

Roads

When I was a sophomore in college, this song was one of the songs I returned to repeatedly to help me make sense of the circumstances around me. That year was a year of a lot of growing pains for me, academically, socially, spiritually and even romantically. With all of these changes, I often found myself confused, doubtful and hurt more often than clear-sighted, certain and peaceful. Prayer was the foundation and cornerstone of everything that year, from discerning paper topics to questions about dating, everything, I placed in the hands of the Lord and eagerly awaited some response, some whisper from Him. Sometimes I would get a response, other times I would feel ignored. How could I truly know God's will? I wanted to follow it so vehemently, and yet I was always second-guessing my every move, my every decision. Yet, despite all of my muddled attempts at discovering a sure-fire way to discern God's will, it was that year that I came to realize something that changed my perspective on the way everything worked for good.

What is love? A topic as broad and as deep as love I'm not going to be able to claim to answer in a short blog post, but there are certain attributes to love that I do feel confident are integral to understanding what love truly is. In my Christian Moral Life class that year in college, we talked about virtues, grace, freedom and of course love. Dr. Rziha, our professor, continually pounded into our heads a few key phrases, "Knowledge leads to love which leads to unity," and, "love is making the needs and wants of the beloved your own." Simple enough, but infinitely difficult to truly master in practicality.

If you consider all things occurring in your life and you were to just take a snapshot, what would we see? Where does your love lead you? We are always following our loves, and the things we love are the things we know the best (knowledge leads to love which leads to unity). Which begs the question, how well do we really know God? That omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent Being that He is, can we truly know Him, and His will? Yes, we can, in knowing the Person, Jesus Christ, we come to truly know God Himself. He meets us in the ways our senses can understand, through the sacraments, especially through the sacrament of the Eucharist, where we truly touch and taste Him and become one with Him in His entirety. Love makes the wants and needs of the beloved their own, if we are to truly love God, how can we be sure we are doing God's will? Surely that would prove to God that we truly loved Him if we followed His will, so why does He hide it from us so well it seems? Things are not as complex as we sometimes like to make them out to be.

We have a tendency as good-intentioned Catholic Christians to get so caught up in this obtuse sense of "God's will" that we forget that God's will isn't the "out there" it's the "in here" the close, the tangible workings of day-to-day life. Every moment, God has placed you in any given situation to give you the opportunity to be the holiest you can be in that moment. God's will isn't distant, hidden because it's immediate, surrounding us. This is not a written excuse to do whatever we so desire, it's an invitation to make the wants and needs of God our own at every moment. What are His needs and wants? He lacks nothing, He needs nothing, He has it all. His only want, His only desire, is quite simply our happiness, our true happiness. Happiness can only be found in doing the good, the true good, and this world is so full of good.

So, how can we be assured that the roads we take in life are the true goods God desires for us? Consider this: do you think that any of your decisions can trump the Creator's plan for the unfolding of the universe and your life? We have a tendency to think of God's will in terms of a map with a certain line that must be followed, when, more often than not, if we are truly loving God, truly seeking Him (which in turn, frees us and makes us happy) then it's not really a line that must be followed, it's more like an open book with the author saying, "choose my beloved." That's what love does, it's reciprocal, we seek Him with our hearts and keep a simple love for Him as the main drive for everything we do, then no matter what we do, we are assured that it is part of His will. Thomas Merton expressed it best in his "prayer of abandonment."

My Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain
where it will end.

Nor do I really know myself,
and that I think I am following your will
does not mean I am actually doing so.

But I believe
the desire to please you
does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire
in all I am doing.

I hope
I will never do anything
apart from that desire.
And I know if I do this
you will lead me by the right road
though I may know nothing about it.

I will trust you always
though I may seem to be lost
and in the shadow of death.

I will not fear,
for you will never leave me
to face my perils alone.

That's it. We may feel like sometimes we're going in blind, but ultimately, if love of God is our true guide and compass, all the roads lead back to Him. Love is making the needs and wants of the beloved your own, and quite simply, God's desire for us is to be happy with Him in heaven at the end of all things. Let love win in your life.