Dear Editor
As human beings we’re searchers and strivers every day of our lives. It’s what makes us human. We strive first for food and shelter, but when we’ve assured ourselves of those, we’re compelled to search for something more. Many of us never understand what that “something” is. We latch on to “things”: cars, sex, drugs, booze, recognition, “acclaim”, money, power, “success”: short term adrenalin rushes to fill a gnawing, inexorable emptiness. We flail and struggle often in growing despair and nameless fear; “medicating” ourselves with anything to assuage the unnamed void.
What’re we searching for? Some type of inner fulfillment which might in the short term be called “happiness”, but more accurately long-term as “joy”, or even “love”.
We may get clues to it in our sexual attractions and a little more clearly in our long-term relationships and friendships, and hopefully in lifelong family attachments. But these would seem to be just clues. To what exactly?
I’d propose; to the following: though many of us don’t realize it, we’re desperately searching for a lifelong, commitment to that which surrounds us, God’s infinite and infinitely awesome and valuable creation: Our fellow human beings, with all their disparate and often desperate flaws and diversity, this earth on which we reside and the glorious and infinite universe of which we are an infinitesimal, yet wondrously unique and valuable part.
If we continuously and unreservedly reach out to that creation, we’ll find that we can neither hold onto nor selfishly nurture our piddling angers, hatreds, fears and that void will increasingly fill with compassion, commitment and service to our fellow man & to God’s creation. Our eyes, hearts, minds and souls will be inexorably opened to the beauty and limitless value of those and that which surrounds us. Our addictions to “things” will not immediately disappear, nor will the repercussions of our previous actions in their “service”, but they will inevitably fade as we move toward increasingly deep and selfless commitment of and service to our fellow man and this glorious, irreplacable creation which surrounds and inexorably binds us.
Let’s humbly and prayerfully reach out and grasp this life affirming commitment, for our sake and for humanities.
