Merry Christmas... let's talk about death

I was driving home from work tonight and a car turned out in front of me. It really wasn't a big deal, he was turning left and I was turning right and there was more than enough time for me to slow down and let him go (which is what I did). But that made me think: what if he hit me? What if I got killed in a car accident on the way home on Christmas Eve? What if anybody died in a crash or for any other reasons this close to Christmas.

That would suck for my family (hopefully I'd be singing with the angels).

My point is, we all know stuff about death. We've probably known somebody who has died or is at death's door. We all know it's painful. Perhaps we've read Heaven is for Real or other such books and know something of near-death experiences. Perhaps we've learned about judgement and as much about Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory as we possibly can. But in the end, we do not know a lot about death. What is it like to die? Very few people can answer this question. But we still don't know until we experience death.

Still, we know more than Adam did. He'd never read those books... this was just a little bit before 2000. He wasn't bombarded by news media: the news was that he woke up and walked around a bush. He'd never had anybody he had known die at this point, he was the first person. Adam had absolutely no exposure to death.

Yet, according to Bl. John Paul II, Adam had an idea based on what he had. He had a body and a spirit, he was blessed with the gift of existence. JP2 says that Adam knew that when God said "if you eat of this tree you shall die," Adam at least associated "death" with "leaving his body".

It's amazing. We owe are very existence to God. Adam existed because of God, and this command probably helped him understand that. We owe life to God, and we owe death (aka hopefully even better life) to God. God. God. God. We really are nothing without him.

We need God. That's the bottom line. Every aspect of ourselves needs God. Haven't you noticed when we decide that we don't need God, everything seems to go wrong? In my personal life, the days when I decide not to pray are the worst. My best days are definitely when I have received the Eucharist, the body and blood and soul and divinity of my God, Jesus Christ. My worst days are when I wake up and don't think about him. And in society, we can see how a lot of our crumbling comes from denial of God, or God's plan. My example: greed. The American economy is so bad because people are greedy. The rich and the poor. Enough Americans want what they cannot afford or exploit people for the sake of having more. Thanks to greed we get violent crime, white collar crime, and a crappy job market.

Guys, we need God. Whether or not we know it, we need God! And that is what Christmas is all about. We need God, and so God gave us himself. We definitely cannot beat that as far as Christmas gifts go, but we can at least give God ourselves in return.

Dear Jesus, Happy Birthday! Thank you for coming to the world for my sake. Help me to continue to acknowledge you throughout the week and to realize how needy I truly am! Also, please comfort those who have lost a loved one recently. Please be with them, and give them the graces they need to not only keep going, but to have a Merry Christmas nevertheless. Amen

2 Roads Diverge...

Did anybody read the poem by... I think it was Walt Whitman? It's about a guy walking in forest and he decides to take the grassy path because it looked like nobody else had. It is pretty easy to see the analogy here between the path and life. We all made choices and different choices will lead us to very different places.

That's one of the topics that JP2 brings up: choice. We all have the choice to choose right and wrong. God gave Adam a tree that he was not supposed to eat from. And for the time, Adam chooses not to eat of it.

If any of you have read my little bio, you know that I'm a Criminal Justice major. Well I just finished a Criminology course, it's amazing some of the theories. Some of them imply that you're bound to commit crime because you have these forces inside (or outside) forcing you to make this particular choice. The funny thing is, we still have the option to choose otherwise. Unless somebody has put some sort of brain-bug in your head and uses a remote control to force your hands to kill someone... it's your choice. We all have the capability to choose between right and wrong. Inside, we all at least have a basic understanding of that is good and what is bad. Do we choose to go through with it?

That does not mean the choice is easy. It can be very hard to make the right choice. It can be very hard to stay at home instead of going to the party where you know there will be heavy drinking and sex. It can be hard to go to a party and tell people you're not drinking. It can be hard to speak up when you watch your friends act in ways that you think may very well come back to haunt them. But do we still have the choice? Yes.

Second point, a point that I think I've been senselessly beating into your heads since the beginning of this blog: humans are not animals. Yes, I've taken basic biology and I know we belong to Kingdom Anamalia. But we are more complex than ordinary animals. JP2 puts that into his talk again because, in a world mixed with mechanism and relativism, we need to know. Here's one new piece of evidence he gives, though:

If you read Genesis 2, it lists out tilling the ground and making the waters rise (thank you Ancient Egypt!). What does this mean? I was confused until I thought about monkeys. Scientists have observed how monkeys, chimps, and several other animals have learned to use tools to help them survive. But, as far as I know, none of them actually farm. None of them have actually worked to grow their own food. Only beavers manipulate the water to help with food. There's a difference, in my opinion, between tools and technology. Tools (my definition) are the small things we use to help ourselves. Technology is changing, so I can't really think of a definition. Anyway, while humans have moved from pyramids to skyscrapers, animals are still hitting oysters with rocks.

My point, and I think JP2's point too, is that humans are much more special than animals. We are capable of so much more thanks to our Heavenly Father.

Dear Lord, please bless us as we live out this week! Help us all to develop our consciences so that we may make the right choices always. And help us remember your Son for His birthday next week! Amen.

... And We're Going to Pretend It's Still Sunday

Alright, so it's finals week and at my school that means breakfast and bingo!!! So I just(ish) got back from that, so forgive me for technically posting on Monday and pray for all my finals and papers to go well!!!!!

And back to solitude...

Yeah, I'm talking about "Original Solitude", one of the points JP2 draws from the beginning of Genesis. Man was out in the world, caring for the plants and the animals and the other things, but scriptures say that he was alone. Why would he be alone when he's clearly not? First of all, Adam was with God. Second, he was with the animals (such as the DOG for crying out loud!) but still, he was alone. This highlights how man is different from every other creation.

I know I've gone into this a lot... thank you History of Psychology... but we need to remember this! We're human. We're special. We're the most amazing, most diverse creatures on the planet. We have a body, but we also have a soul. I learned in a New Testament class that one soul is worth more than all the earth. Why? Because that soul is eternal. When our bodies die, our soul will live on forever. There is literally no way we could learn everything about humanity because we're infinite!

Humans are hard-wired for companionship. It's funny, in my... yes... History of Psychology class again we talked about how humans have these... glands I think (called monods or something like that?) that help us have relationships with others. We need each other.

More than that, men and women need each other. Yes, the scripture seem to imply that man would be completely lost without woman (which is true! :D) but, women also need men. We're different, but we're complementary. It's sort of like cookie dough ice cream (my favorite btw). Men are the vanilla ice cream and women are the cookie dough. Both are good, but together they make something on a whole new level!

Anyway, JP2 does have more to say on this topic. But that's for another letter. If you want to get the book and read ahead... more power to you. But until then, pray that my finals go great!

Dear Lord, I would just like to thank you. Thank you for giving me people in my life. Continue to bless me with more people that will help me grow holier; help me grow closer to you. Thank you! Amen.

Movie time!

Sorry guys, I'm in the midst of finals so that plus the natural procrastination of a college student means I do not currently have the brain capacity to understand John Paul II.

HOWEVER...
for you viewing pleasure I found this video on youtube that I think brings up several good points about our culture. We just have so many problems with young people and "hot or not" and subjective views of the body.
Without further ado...
Proverbs 31 woman v. Victoria's secret model

Have a great evening/day/whatever time you're reading this!

Still in the Beginning

Just wanted to say, first of all, that I'm not going to do daily reflections. I've come to realize that sometimes this is too much for me to take in even every day like this. I'm definitely going to post Sunday, and on other days it depends.

Here's the main thing that stuck out to me in JP2's 5th audience, or his 5th Theology of the Body speech (because that's how he gave them). We sinned. Adam and Eve ate that darn apple... we know the story. But right after that God promises salvation. Right away, we have hope

This weekend, I went on a prayer retreat. During Mass, I was looking around in the chapel (because I had WAY too much coffee that day) and I saw the paining. It was the Annunciation, or when the angel Gabriel visited Mary and told her that she was going to have a Son. But in the background of that painting, on the wall of Mary's house, was a picture of the eviction of the garden. I immediately thought about the contrast between Eve's "no" and Mary's "yes", but now I think about the promise. God promised Adam and Eve that, despite their betrayal and their chosen fallen nature, he would save them. Then, several thousand or so years later, Mary said yes and conceived the savior of the world.

I guess my main idea right now is hope. I'd say that today we live in a more skeptic world than a hopeful one. A college kid goes and gets a degree, and then what next? We don't think about our dream job and hope for the best, we're praying (hopefully) that we'll be able to find a job in today's economy. But I guess in a world influenced greatly by the militant atheists, that should be expected. Without God, there is no hope. Without His promise, there is nothing to look forward to.

God gave Adam and Eve a gift, even though they didn't deserve it, before He gave us Christ. He gave hope.

Dear Lord, sometimes I struggle believing that you will pull through. There's a lot going on right now, and it's hard. Please give me the grace to trust in your providence and true hope. Amen

Creation Part Dos!!

So here's where I get you guys addicted to this little experiment of mine. I tell you that Bl. JP2 says that the second story of creation helps demonstrate the differences in humanity before and after the fall. The difference between our original innocence, and life after the fall. But I'm not going to tell you what any of them are. Partially because I don't know and understand completely myself. Those sections will come soon enough.

Even though there is a difference, the rules have not changed so to speak. This is something that Jesus is trying to tell the Jewish authorities in the Gospels. He said that Moses allowed them to have divorce because "of your hardness of heart." In other words, we were too pig-headed to just switch from free divorce to no divorce. But, as JP2 comments, Jesus didn't like it.

I think we need to think about this in every aspect of our lives. Like Sunday for example. The third commandment says "keep holy the Sabbath Day". But society says "whatever, you have so much to get done and you don't want to waste a second." Just because it is socially acceptable to work and ignore God on His day does not mean it's right. Yeah, it's funny what happens when you word it like that. We don't want to say that we "ignore God", but isn't what forgetting Him on His day is?

Once again, as a college kid, that gives me a lot to think about. There's a lot of things that are "socially acceptable" that I'm not sure coincide with God's law. Like parties. In and of themselves, they aren't bad. But we all know that college parties are pretty much people drinking as much as they can and rubbing on each other when they're too drunk to know exactly what's going on. ONCE AGAIN, just because it's socially or even legally acceptable DOES NOT MAKE IT RIGHT! God has a plan for us, and any step away from that plan is not right.

Stay tuned to learn a little more about God's plan, because it'd be slightly stupid to decide to follow it without trying to find out what it is.

Dear Lord, please open our hearts! Because the hearts of the Israelites were closed, there was a law in contrast with your plan for us. Help us to always be open to your will, or at least give us the desire to be open. Help us make the right choice always, no matter what others may think. And help us in this continued study, for lack of a better term, and help us learn what your servant Bl. John Paul II had to say to us. Amen

"in the image of God he created them" AKA the 1st creation story

There are two ideas that come out to me most in this small passage: the fact we are made in God's image and that he created us male and female.

FIRST PART: So we are made in God's image. That means we have to be good. JP2 points out here that the only comparisons in these biblical passages are between God and man. First, that means that we cannot just compare man to other animals. We can only get so far, and any picture would be incomplete.

It's funny... remember how I got really academic a few posts ago and blamed it on my Psychology class? Well, in this same psychology class I just turned in another paper of behaviorism and psychoanalysis. For those of you who don't know what those are... google psychoanalysis. But behaviorism is a science where, for the most part, you observe animals and draw conclusions from this. As I wrote in this paper, it sounds interesting but it does not completely make sense. As JP2 says, if we are made in the image and likeness of God, and we can never completely understand God, doesn't it make sense that we wouldn't understand everything about humanity either much less learn about it from animals.

Also, the Bible does not compare humans to the earth but it does say that we were put in dominion over it. This gives us a degree of superiority that the other animals do not have.

The most important thing, the thing I think most people struggle with, is that we are good. Because God made us, we are good. Yes, there is the fall so there is definitely some not good stuff with humanity. But our bodies are a gift. We need to respect them. How? As a female, the first thing that comes to mind is how we dress. Do our outfits reflect the dignity of our bodies or are they practically "grab here" signs. On the other hand, we need to be careful about how we treat our bodies. What sort of stress do we put them under? What sort of fuel do we put in them? Do we eat too much? Do we eat enough? Do we hurt ourselves. People, we need to respect this wonderful gift that God has given us.

SECOND PART... and I think a lot of extreme left-side feminists would scream at me right now, but at least wait.

JP2 says that the Bible is very objective in this point. It's not gloating or anything... it's just stating a fact that anybody above the age of 2 should know. Boys and girls are different. When I was little (according to my mother) I was in a class when she was pregnant with my little brother. I argued with the teacher because "the only difference between boys and girls is that girls have long hair and boys have short hair".

Haha. So I think we all know that 4-year-old me was not quite right, so what is different? Men tend to be bigger than women, but women have bigger hips. It's true. In 7th grade I learned from a classmate's father that you could tell if the person in an x-ray was male or female based on the hips. Clearly there's some other bodily differences that I just don't feel like going into, and I think we should all start thinking about what that means for gender roles.

One last thing: human beings were created last according to creation story. So God created the animals, created man, and then created woman ( :D ). Okay in all seriousness, that means that we human beings are the high points of God's creation. Even high than the angels. Isn't that amazing?

Dear Lord, I would like to thank you for all your gifts to me! I would like to thank you for my body and my life, as well as making me a (guy or girl depending on the reader's gender). Please continue to bless us as we try to learn more about you through the words of your Servant Bl. John Paul II. Amen