Preserve It

The liberating effects of American contraception, live-in-relationships, Dr. Ruth's media messages and legalized abortion (just-in-case) couldn't have come at a better time for me.  Busting out of the inferiority shell of my youth and into the "anything goes" sexual revolution of the 80's and 90's was my ticket to happiness and fulfillment.  The parties, the clubs, the one night stands, need I say more?  Along with it came personal computers and access to a never ending stream of pornography.  We can't get enough of it would seem; the majority of the culture still acts as if this is all acceptable, signs of the time, part of a modern, progressive American culture many will say.  

But:

• No-one says anything about the violent ripping and tearing apart that happens when two hearts, supernaturally joined together during fornication, separate after things become inconvenient, constraining, or the lust just wears off; scarring and callousing the heart until it becomes cold and hardened like rock.  
• No-one prepares you for the short term horrors of an abortion procedure and the permanent long term effect of the guilt for having aided and abetted in the death of another human life.  
• No-one tells you what happens within the mind of another's child when they scream and cry out, objecting to your presence, longing for the affections of their natural father whom they seldom see now since their parents' divorce.  
• No-one tells you what it's like to find a partner leaving you for another woman, leaving her 'wilting' children with her mother for months while she 'blossoms' in the spring of her new perversion.  
• No-one to share the shame and embarrassment in treating STDs.  
• No-one says anything about the skewed view of American women you develop and the emptiness in finding her as a mere object lacking in any worthy qualities and all of the effort and will power that it will take to reverse this. 
• No-one says enough about the exploiting, manipulating, and trafficking that fuels the Internet pornography, 'gentlemen' clubs, and other sex trade operations that you patronize. 

Until now.

There is no lasting happiness and fulfillment here, sex in the American city is a deceitful sell, a downward spiral into hell itself.  The "cultural" cues that would try to tell you otherwise are false.  I know this to be true with concrete certainty because I lived it;  I struggle daily to erase it's negative effects.  

  

The sins may be forgiven but the stain never goes away, not in this lifetime. 

Your pure heart and body are a gift to your future family; your dignity, a gift from God. 

You're much better to preserve it.

"We may say that as a result of sin a threefold division has come into being for man; he has become divided from God, divided within himself, and divided from his fellow men.   First of all, by sin man was cut off from God, divided from him: that was the first division, and it is the origin and cause of the other two.  Men separated, detached from God, "become vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened….Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness...to shameful affections….And as they liked not to have God in their knowledge, God delivered them up to a reprobate sense, to do these things which are not convenient, being filled with all iniquity, malice...avarice, wickedness….inventors of evil things, foolish, without affection, without fidelity, without mercy" (Rom 1:21-31).  That is St. Paul's picture of mankind without God."  - Benedict Baur in Frequent Confession: Its Place in the Spiritual Life.   (p205)

A Little Bit of Heaven, Now

Just for fun, go way, way, back to the beginning of your memories, to when you were just a small child.  Look for a truly peaceful time in your life here where you maybe only just vaguely, can still remember.  It could be to a day like mine:  outside, a class fieldtrip, the yellow school bus in the distance, holding hands with my classmates, walking along the grassed bank of a flowing creek leading to a shaded duck pond, and under the watchful eye of some really nice teacher (she sincerely loved kids).  Just me, this joyful teacher and my wee sized classmates. 

During this outing, there was a picnic and my mother had carefully packed my favorite lunch including a Little Debbie chocolate cake for desert ("Ho Hos"), and my very own, 12 ounce can of Coca Cola to drink, wrapped in aluminum foil.   Here I was, loved, cared for, secure, outside God's green earth, beside myself with so much beauty, creation and fascinating creatures.

Duck pond somewhere in Albany, Oregon.

Now remember with me guys, go as far back as you can, to your earliest "day of innocence."  Was it when you were out on the fishing pier of your family's coastal vacation home, just you and your brother?  How about when you were under the family Christmas tree, you and dad holding onto your first real fishing rod? Maybe it was during your first Dallas Cowboy football game with your dad, mom and sisters?

Except for perhaps disobeying our parents or not sharing with our siblings, here we were, innocent, free of any kind of major "sin," full of joy and wonderment.  If you've got the correct time period locked in, you were still quite distant and free from any kind of heartache or struggle: bullying, poor athletic abilities, bad grades, speaking or performance gaffs, etc.  Even further away were you from the inevitable loss of job, financial crisis, major illness, failed relationship, death of a loved one, loss of faith, addiction, etc.  

It feels good to go back there doesn't it? This childhood memory, this joy.  Why do we lose this joy?  In it's place, we begin regretting life, the failed opportunities, missed relationships, things that we should have, could have, might have done. 

Why do we lose God?   

• I can't explain electricity….but it exists.
• I can't explain TV reception….but it exists.
• I can't explain international cell phone conversation either….but it exists.
• I can't explain air travel....but it exists.
• I can't explain Miss Universe….but she exists.
• I can't explain Ferrari...but it exists.
• I can't explain "Albert Einstein like" intelligence...but it exists.
• I can't explain the beginning of the universe….but it exists.

• I can't explain God….but God exists.

Maybe you've never believed in God even though the principles of God exists all around you.  Though the principles of electricity have existed since the beginning of creation, we didn't learn how to "turn the switch on" until the 19th century.  Or, maybe you really knew God all along but now, no longer know joy.  "You were within me while I had gone outside to seek you.  In my unloveliness, I fell heedlessly upon all those lovely things you had made.  Always you were with me, but I was not with you.  Created things kept me far from you; yet if they had not been in you, they would not have been at all." said St. Augustine.

That which "attracts" us, that which stirs our hearts, is but a foretaste of the more everlasting love to eventually envelop us for all of eternity.  Every good childhood memory, the events that frame them, the core goodness, comes from God!  Miss Universe, did she really get away, NO gentlemen!  Her core goodness and beauty comes from God!   Lusting after anybody, same sex, opposite sex, is just counterfeit for the core love that your heavenly soul really seeks but that the earthly flesh tends to corrupt; this core love - "is a gift" from God explains Christopher West in his John Paul II Theology of the Body seminars.   The astounding human creativity and workmanship behind every Ferrari or Mercedes S Class that you may never afford, don't worry, the core goodness comes from God.  The ingenuity behind the iPad - this too comes from God; the great scientific principles and discoveries - all coming from God.   The greatest vacation spots in the world also come from God and to think you're destined for God!  "... yet if they had not been in you, they would not have been at all."

The Church on earth, comes from God, Mary's yes.  Jesus Christ, born of human flesh, eternally begotten of God, dying out of love for us, resurrected and ever present through the Holy Spirit, IS God.

What if this childhood joy is just a taste of what eternal joy is like in the light of God; times 10 raised to the 100 power; a little bit of heaven now?  Every small and fleeting joy on earth then being just a foretaste of what's to permanently come in life eternal.  Reclaiming this joy we would be reminding ourselves of what we are moving towards, that in itself, a cause for joy in the here and now.

I believe praying and fasting allows one to receive God's grace and with grace, one is able to go even further in the pursuit of the truth, of things of God.  Over time, an even deeper form of praying evolves:  the "contemplating" of God's mysteries as revealed in Scripture and spiritual books.  With patience, an effective contemplative prayer will yield consolation.  A consolation is a brief "touch" or feeling much like this childhood experience of peace, joy and security;  the same feeling that one's joyful childhood memory invokes, experienced briefly in the present moment!  It is a revelation, if you will, of things to come, of this eternal, never ending  joy. 

Jesus Christ said, "Let the children come to me.  Do not hinder them.  The kingdom of God belongs to such as these."  And he laid his hands on their heads before he left that place.   Matthew 19:14

I think we need to allow our hearts to become childlike again if only to rekindle this taste of heaven on earth.  Don't you?

"Late have I loved you, O Beauty so ancient and so new.  Too late have I loved you!  You were within me while I had gone outside to seek you.  In my unloveliness, I fell heedlessly upon all those lovely things you had made.  Always you were with me, but I was not with you.  Created things kept me far from you; yet if they had not been in you, they would not have been at all.  You called, you shouted, you broke open my deafness.  You blazed, you gleamed, you banished my blindness.  You lavished your fragrance, I gasped, and now I long for you.  I trusted you, and now I hunger and thirst.  You touched me, and now I burn with desire for your peace." - Confessions (X, 27, 38) St. Augustine of Hippo

Ferrari 458 Italia