I sometimes called the notes I sent you “Meditations”, because they were meant to be thought about. Sometime I just stuck a general topic title, without giving it much thought. Last week I sent out one titled “Knowledge”, and mused on the values of acquiring knowledge. It was a topic I had been thinking about for quite a while, and I thought I had some answers I’d share with you.
Wisdom
I returned from receiving communion. As I knelt, I prayed to the Lord: Why me? Why have you blessed me with this gift of yourself? Why have you blessed my life with so much knowledge of you, through your grace to me, and through the writings of so many of your saints and devoted servants? Why do I want to know you more? Am I wasting my time seeking knowledge, when all true Wisdom comes from you? Is it just vanity, seeking to know you more for the pleasure it brings me? Is it just a prideful thing that I seek to become more like you – become more like a God? Do I seek what is way beyond me to have?
The answer I felt was: “So that you might love me”. My lifelong work, my greedy desire to find and know Truth, my wanting to have lived a life worthwhile, to have made a difference – however small – in this world, to my family, to my friends, to be who I was created to be: is all that effort, my driving passion, all to be fulfilled in something so simple: “So that you might love me?”
As I’ve grown older, I’ve found many answers and much peace from some simple words which, fortunately, I recall from my earlier days, only now with much deeper understanding. Someone once said: To know him is to love him. I’m sure they were speaking about someone in their life who they deeply admired. But when I hear those words now, they have a richer meaning for me. The “H” in “Him” is capitalized for me. My life’s reason is to grow in knowledge of Him, and through that grow in holiness – to be more like Him. I don’t have to gather facts, consider alternatives, plan strategies for growing in holiness, plans to follow His lead. I don’t have to measure my progress, and berate myself with a poor report card. Gathering facts, considering alternatives, making my plans: those are things I do for me to achieve earthly goals. I cannot create my plans to achieve my heavenly goal. The plans are not mine to be made. The goal is not one I can achieve. It is all given to me, all set aside for me. I cannot conquer through my will to achieve it. It’s not about me and my will, it’s about His. All the knowledge I gather is nothing, until He makes me understand it with Wisdom.
One day I was returning home from Sunday mass and I reflected on my life and its goals and progress, somewhat similar to my musings of today. I summarized all my thoughts into a single question to God: Why did you make me? The question felt very profound at the time. It seemed to summarize everything about my life up to then, and my thoughts about the future. The “profound” answer came to me as I suddenly recalled my third grade religious study question and answer: Q. Why did God make me? A. He made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him. Third grade.
A third grade bit of knowledge which has taken me a lifetime to understand the wisdom contained therein. Why all this seeking in my life, to read of God and the Truth of Him and his creation? A. To know Him. All that work to what result? A. To love Him (as He has today reminded me). And having achieved some level of loving Him, to what end? A. Why, the end He promised us: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments, and I will give you life everlasting.” If we love Him, while on earth we will serve Him, keeping His commandments, and when no longer on earth, He will give us life everlasting.
To know, to love, to serve. Third grade simplicity.
So the simple responses I received today on the value of my life’s efforts, to know the Truth, to know Him, have an infinity of value, and an eternity of reward. And all I have to do is continue to seek … “and you shall find … so that you might love me.”
I’ve always liked these words from an old Nat King Cole song (When I Fall in Love): “When I give my heart, it will be completely, or I’ll never give my heart. And the moment I can feel that, you feel that way too, is when I fall in love with you.” My life of searching, is to reach that moment when I can know and feel in the totality of Truth and of trust, the love of God, so that I might love Him too.
It’s easy to sit back and enjoy all the blessings of my life, to think that their best use is to make this life enjoyable for me and my friends. But life is a journey, an endless flowing river. As much as we might like, we cannot stay where we are. What I have now, I didn’t always have. What I will have in the future will be different. Time flows on, as does my life. We must prepare for the rough portions of the river, which inevitably come, but we must also prepare for when we finally reach the all encompassing sea. For we will be part of it someday. Where we will love in an infinite greatness, an infinite Goodness. Then we will receive an infinite reward of peace from all our searching.
For we will have found.
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