Why I Believe In Try
I've finally discovered the joy of reading other people's blogs. There are a great many good ones out there, I'm amazed to say, full of all kinds of little information gems and musings and rants and essays with links that make me laugh and shake my head and realize how human and connected to one another we are. It really is a small world and what's more, our experiences all share an intimacy and a familiarity. How needed is that in a world that is so huge and seems so cold and brutal and unforgiving at times? There is, however, one quote I keep coming across that disturbs me and even though I have never seen the movie, I'm told Yoda from Star Wars is it's originator. "Do or do not: There is no try." I've seen this quote so many times and wonder what the heck people are thinking when they quote it. After all, at this very moment I'm in try.
I'm trying to write out my thoughts in this blog. After this, I plan on trying to get another 3 or 4 hours of sleep until my son and daughter awake. Then, I will try, with Christ's help, to move through the day and be a good mother and remember to do all the little things that go along with it. I will try and remember Christ today, and thank Him for the blessings my family has received and continue to receive moment by moment.
I will try to battle the inward voices I hear and have heard for the last 8 years, which are negative and abusive and constantly compete for my attention. I will also try to pray intelligently and with all my heart for those suffering in the world, most obviously those in Israel and Iraq, for our soldiers and for the women and children who are displaced and war-ravaged and without the basic necessities of life. I will try to consistently push away the culture of death we live in, this paradox that confuses me and at the same time strengthens me, giving me something to fight against in the first place. I will try to sing to my children, and clean my kitchen floor and do my laundry. I will try to be a Christian and a Catholic. I will try to keep it all in perspective, as Christ and the Catholic Church have taught me.
In fact, when I think about it, I have never known a single person who isn't in try. We are always moving toward something or someone, or moving away. People who who have given up on try are dead people, who have instead embraced apathy and have ceased seeking after love, who have been so burned or hurt or discouraged that life no longer gives them a reason to try. Where there is no hope, there is no try. The culture of death rings out a bell in our society that echoes through our homes and our streets, that wants us to choose not to try. Abortion is a perfect example of this sinister phenomenon, the very idea that by choosing not to extend oneself and compromise oneself for the sake of another human being, indeed by denying that person his or her very life, we empower ourselves. It is much easier to fill our prisons with criminals instead of funding rehabilitation programs and research that may ultimately help these people and after all who would want to take the time to counsel them or spend their tax dollars on them anyway?
Christ's entire life was about try. Born in abject poverty, with a bounty on His head from birth, His ministry lasting an entire 3 and a half years, the gospel He brought us was an insult to the Jews and almost completely rejected. He died abandoned, humiliated, as a criminal. When you think about Jesus' life in human terms, He was a terrible failure. So, why try to be a Christian? It is much easier to believe the lies the world tells and embrace the shiny and empty pleasures it promises us, to be momentarily comfortable and not think too deeply about the care of our souls, the possibility that we may be more than just the sum of our parts, a thing made for eating and sleeping and reproducing.
It isn't until those shiny things fail us that we raise our heads and begin to really try. To seek His face. We may, in the beginning, try after other things, which one by one will ultimately fall short of what we are looking for, something we can't even describe. God has imbued each one of us with a soul, and eventually, in every life that soul begins to hunger for it's Creator.
I'm trying to write out my thoughts in this blog. After this, I plan on trying to get another 3 or 4 hours of sleep until my son and daughter awake. Then, I will try, with Christ's help, to move through the day and be a good mother and remember to do all the little things that go along with it. I will try and remember Christ today, and thank Him for the blessings my family has received and continue to receive moment by moment.
I will try to battle the inward voices I hear and have heard for the last 8 years, which are negative and abusive and constantly compete for my attention. I will also try to pray intelligently and with all my heart for those suffering in the world, most obviously those in Israel and Iraq, for our soldiers and for the women and children who are displaced and war-ravaged and without the basic necessities of life. I will try to consistently push away the culture of death we live in, this paradox that confuses me and at the same time strengthens me, giving me something to fight against in the first place. I will try to sing to my children, and clean my kitchen floor and do my laundry. I will try to be a Christian and a Catholic. I will try to keep it all in perspective, as Christ and the Catholic Church have taught me.
In fact, when I think about it, I have never known a single person who isn't in try. We are always moving toward something or someone, or moving away. People who who have given up on try are dead people, who have instead embraced apathy and have ceased seeking after love, who have been so burned or hurt or discouraged that life no longer gives them a reason to try. Where there is no hope, there is no try. The culture of death rings out a bell in our society that echoes through our homes and our streets, that wants us to choose not to try. Abortion is a perfect example of this sinister phenomenon, the very idea that by choosing not to extend oneself and compromise oneself for the sake of another human being, indeed by denying that person his or her very life, we empower ourselves. It is much easier to fill our prisons with criminals instead of funding rehabilitation programs and research that may ultimately help these people and after all who would want to take the time to counsel them or spend their tax dollars on them anyway?
Christ's entire life was about try. Born in abject poverty, with a bounty on His head from birth, His ministry lasting an entire 3 and a half years, the gospel He brought us was an insult to the Jews and almost completely rejected. He died abandoned, humiliated, as a criminal. When you think about Jesus' life in human terms, He was a terrible failure. So, why try to be a Christian? It is much easier to believe the lies the world tells and embrace the shiny and empty pleasures it promises us, to be momentarily comfortable and not think too deeply about the care of our souls, the possibility that we may be more than just the sum of our parts, a thing made for eating and sleeping and reproducing.
It isn't until those shiny things fail us that we raise our heads and begin to really try. To seek His face. We may, in the beginning, try after other things, which one by one will ultimately fall short of what we are looking for, something we can't even describe. God has imbued each one of us with a soul, and eventually, in every life that soul begins to hunger for it's Creator.
posted by Mikala at 8/09/2006
1 Comments:
Hi
How are you?
Would you contact me at my blog? Freedom?
I would love for you to join our women's group that is focusing on what you have outlined in your blog.
Krissi
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