Living in God

We are living in this world.  God is not, although His Spirit is always with us.  While living in this world, we are in the process of departing it; we are in transition to God.  Our will and our attitudes are a measure of our progress.  The Catholic Church teaches that if we should die without sufficient progress, we may face a Purgatory, to purge us of our lingering attachments to this world, and perfect our longing to live in God.

Christian or atheist, we know when we leave this world we’ll take nothing with us.  All those things we may have focused huge efforts to attain --- money, things, prestige, power --- all those things will stay behind.  A president on earth won’t be a president in heaven.  A movie star won’t have any movies to star in.  All the earthly accomplishments and awards will be gone, and even if they were historical, all the history will be forgotten.

So, if we are leaving all this earth behind, why seek anything at all on this earth?  Shouldn’t we all be bums or on the government dole?  Ah, but those thoughts only focus on our future, but we are here now.  We are in transition, on a journey to God, and this earth and everything an everyone in it can be tools to help us get to God, like the train or the car helps with earthly journeys.  And the people of earth are unique tools, for we might use them, or they might use us, but together we can choose to help each other to attain God.  Christ came to show us how to live, how to love, together, to enter His heaven, to complete our journey successfully.

A cell phone can distract me with interesting games, or it can put me in contact with others on the journey, or with Words of direction from the Master.  Many things of this earth can be useful tools, if we use them wisely.

Life is life.  To sustain it you need nourishment, rest, and yes even occasional distractions to calm and refresh the mind.  But life is also a journey.  We should never lose focus of the destination, nor our resolve to get there.  Whatever we might think is interesting or wonderful alone the way, ho-ho, that is nothing compared to the wonder of the destination.  Nothing at all.

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I slipped and fell on the ice Monday morning.  I slammed my face into the ground.  I skipped mass as I applied ice all day to my wounds, and skipped mass again on Tuesday, and shall probably on Wednesday and Thursday also.  My body yearns for rest --- much more sleep than I usually need --- to recover.  And my face swelling needs to still go down, and wounds heal, to prevent the stares and questions.

One slip and important things in our lives can be missed, perhaps even important things we don’t wish to miss.  And, a slip can put us on the wrong path, one not easily changed.

Some wrong paths we slip into, others we choose by slipping in our focus, our awareness that God may be calling.  Last night while on the phone with a friend who lived miles away, she said she heard thunder.  Even as she said the words, I told her that I just heard it also.  Strange!  And then we continued our conversation.

The noise, as I later learned, was a meteor entering the earth’s atmosphere.  As wise and as scientific both my friend and I are, we could have/should have thought of that strange event and guessed its origins.  But we ignored it.

I think that is an example of how sometimes God enters our life; we hear but we ignore Him, and we miss an opportunity for a new path, an opportunity He offers to us, to begin to live with Him, in His life even now.

A life can be focused on a cell phone, or a life can be focused on Him.  One we can so focus on we’d be lost during this life without it, or the other so focused on we’d be lost for eternity without Him.

Someone made the phone and said: “Now you go and have fun.”  Someone gave us life and said: “Come, let US find eternal joy, together.”

Some paths we choose.