We gather

We gather
to give thanks for my 25 years.

Monday, May 17, 2021

Who would ever have thought?

We "embrace the imperfection and even the injustices of our world, allowing these situations to change us from the inside out.  This is the only way things are changed."  (Richard Rohr ofm)  

During this pandemic which has highlighted so poignantly how our world is plagued by so many other pandemics of injustice and violence, I am mesmerized by the view that this is not simply a time for change in our world but to change our world.  I wrestle with this.  Is it possible or not?  This is a question that vexes me, while I ever hold dearly to hope for real change in our world?  Then I read this from Richard Rohr.  

My hope is not unique.  Pope Francis is my inspiration as he continually pushes that this pandemic will definitively change our world.  He plainly says: "We do not come out of a crisis the same, we either come out better or worse."  He clearly points the way to our being on the verge of  entering a new era.  I believe in my heart that we are but is that just me being me?  Will our world be better or worse following this pandemic?  All this, Francis would posit, is up to us.    

Being an idealist, I hope we enter into a new era where all will be better.   The realist in me sees ongoing divisions, injustices, conflicts and catastrophes in our world, and I wonder if it is possible.  

Idealist or realist is not the point.  What matters is who I am.  My life is rooted in the experience of looking after the little guy who has no one to look after them, to give those going nowhere a hand.  Justice is key to who I am.  It has made me who I am.  My times of failure to put that into action have taken away from who I am.  I must never forget that I became who I am in the Church because she is truly my Mother, having given me life and opportunity in real ways and through real people when I was most vulnerable.  

To live a life based on a sense of giving back is not lifelong nourishing or sustaining.  Justice and the people in my life who live it, the Oscar Romeros, nourish and sustain me, making me who I am in life - a priest and religious - even in my knowing how I fail and fall short.   That is what my life is about.        

As Kierkegaard (1835) so aptly captures it:  "What I really need is to get clear about what I must do, not what I must know, except insofar as knowledge must precede every act. What matters is to find a purpose, to see what it really is that God wills that I shall do; the crucial thing is to find a truth which is truth for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die."  

Integrity matters.  Live who I am.  Failures and risks challenge.  Never compromise my integrity.  Who would ever have thought that a pandemic would challenge so much fertile matter for life?








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