I hear those words being said by various people in various ways these days. It’s almost a favorite topic of conversation or editorial news. And there’s much debate on how we got here, and not nearly so much on where we are going, or why.
We can never go back to be who we once were. From a biological standpoint we are all growing older and cannot go back to our youth, but I remember the blessings we once shared. And I have pictures and movies to remind me of those good times. Unlike the negative minds which tear down statues and focus on the bad of the past, I will only focus on the good of the past, and thank God for His blessings, and try to make my new future with His blessings also, but with new blessings. Jesus said You must be born again and the people asked “how can you enter the womb again?” They were looking at the past, not the new future Jesus was describing, being born in the spirit. Jesus was talking about going forward, not back. The Jews thought He was going to do as the Old Testament military leaders did, but He was the fulfillment of the Old Testament, not its continuance. He came, and things were never the same again.
Jesus came to show people a new future, with Him for eternity. At His time, there were many people saying things needed to change, in the government and in their Jewish faith. And they wanted change now. And they wanted it to be as if it were a heaven on earth, now. But the New Testament shows how His followers began to make a change in the minds and hearts of people, and then the world. It was not done NOW. Their lives, the lives of the Catholic Church, are like a story which has an ending which Jesus described, but never said when the completion would be. We need to grow. The Church needs to grow. Governments need to grow. We need to go forward.
Looking back is a good thing. We can see our mistakes (and hopefully not repeat them). Looking forward is a good thing. We can imagine the future Jesus described and the joy of our being there. But we live in the now. It’s taken many years to achieve the many good things of the Church and the United States. And the good things of this country are far from being only monetary --- do you think all the immigrants want to come here only for money? But we need to go forward, with a continuing look at the good things of the past, AND, AND … if some of those good things have waned, we need to bring those things back.
One of the huge changes of the now is the heavy stress on the self. There are many ways to see that in the past this was not a point of stress. Family, community, groups were the stress, and they were all groupings sharing a love in common. And although they had much less money than we now have, THEY WERE HAPPY. For eternity, we have the goal of the joy of heaven. But a major good thing of the past was the joy of community. I know a number of people who have gone on mission to Africa or South America and found that in small, poor villages there were many people who were happy. They loved and cared for one another’s needs. They had no money, but they had each other, and they were happier than the missionaries who visited them. And when the Church came to them, they found joy in the Church community.
Those who are stressing a future of “selfs” doing what they want, will find those selfs very unhappy. We were not created to be alone; the Bible explains why. We were not created “in freedom” to do anything we want, but to choose God’s will for us, not as a dictator, but as a loving Father.
For all the lonely people, for all the people depressed, and for all the people considering suicide in this country (despite all the money and electronics they have), they would do well to meditate on the Bible. “Jesus sat with them and ate with them”; He could have come in this time instead, and sent them a text message. Why didn’t He?
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With the above words in mind, I answered a question our group talked about last night. The question was: What was the biggest mistake you made in your life? After some thought, I said it was that I moved away from my family in Illinois to take a job in Michigan. I was the first of our extended family to go to college, and the first to move away. All the reasons to move were the things I learned in college. Unfortunately, I never considered all the things I learned at home and in our family.
When I grew up, I knew every family and person up and down our street --- both sides. I knew the old people who I cut grass for and shoveled snow, gratis. And I had many friends my age. I went to school with them. I went to movies with them. Friends and neighbors were synonymous. When my older sister got married, she and her husband bought a house 2 blocks from where we grew up. I wish I had thought that way. My life would have been much different if family were nearby, and a constant focus of my life. Superhighways and the internet are things which easily take us to places far away --- and from the most important people in our lives: family.
