Stumbling Toward Enlightenment

I feel compelled to write because that's what I do when I'm anxious. And then I go to the gym and I sweat it out. My mind, like so many others, has been plagued with thoughts of the Newtown shootings. And while we try to make sense of the perfect storm that created this mess of a kid who would do such a thing, there are so many factors that I'm sure we'll be debating them for months or even years to come. But one thing I'm sure of--we live in a very, very angry world. There is anger everywhere--I encounter it on a daily basis. There is the lady who threw a fit the other day in my local post office because the line wasn't moving fast enough--complete with calling someone a "queer ass"--all the while wearing a Christmas sweater . A Christmas sweater, for goodness sake!!! And I'm sad to say that I've seen her type all over town. (yes, I'm about to stereotype...) Middle-aged White Christian women tearing down the street in their SUVs, latt

I keep seeing these car stickers and their message irks me a bit. Perhaps you've never seen it, but it refers to a Christian-themed brand called "Not of this World". It is a Christian idea, this detached-from-the-world-living-in-God's-kingdom stuff. As a cradle Catholic, I completely disagree with this logic. Are we truly called to live our lives with our head in the clouds, proclaiming to others that our hearts and minds are in the heavens, all the while (let's be honest) partaking in all the human drama and emotions that define our lives? Nope. Is the point of life truly to detach oneself, in a ironically Buddhist sense, from the world that God has placed us in? Again, nope. In my opinion (this is my blog, after all), we should never seek to remove ourselves from our own human lives, but occupy them, touch others' lives, fully engage in the life that God gave us. What is the good in pretending like you're "not of this world," other than t