Harmonizing our lives with our maker's designs Archives < Page 2 of 8

Neronic Behavior

“Fiddling while Rome burns” is an old expression meaning to be absorbed in lesser matters while vital and more important matters are ignored and unaddressed.
   It’s associated with the Roman emperor Nero, no hero nor exemplary figure in our received history. Curiously, even the word “fiddling” by itself can also be used with a somewhat similar meaning.
   Going back to Nero, how could the powerful head of the great Roman Empire have been so indifferent to the plight of the people of his burning capitol, so absorbed in his personal pleasures? You want to know how? It’s easy; look in the mirror!
   How many times have we behaved somewhat like Nero? How often have we let ourselves be absorbed in our secondary matters, good though they may be, while leaving far more important and significant matters unattended to, matters involving the life and well-being of others who were trusting in our concern, aid, and care?
   That’s Nero-like behavior!
   May God forgive us for our selfishness and indifference to the plight of others—for our fundamentally flawed behaviors, for our selfish, self-centered concerns, for our frequent deafness, dumbness, and blindness.
   Jesus said, “I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35)
   This wasn’t a mere suggestion by Jesus to his disciples for their personal growth and maturation, nor a guideline for a more responsible lifestyle.
   Jesus was speaking in the persona of Moses when he said “I give you a new commandment.”
   And, the commandments given by Moses were not his desires nor plans but the explicit will of God for his people.

   “Love one another” is far more than a counsel to avoid “fiddling.” It is a direct, unavoidable demand and obligation. It requires our total commitment and even sacrifice.
   It is the overriding, incontestable command of our Maker. It is the absolutely necessary guideline for each and every day of our lives!
   Nero wasn’t a fire-fighter. He didn’t take any serious personal risks. Ultimately he was indifferent to the plight of so many others. He opted for his self-absorbing distraction of music-making, ignoring the life-threatening plight of his people. His behavior clearly contradicted the command of the Creator, as we understand it.
   How Neronic are we, you and I?
   I think there is a little bit of Nero in each of our lives, a temptation to ignore the plight of others who look to us for concern, for guidance, for help, for care.
   “This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
   You know, as good and as pious as you or I may be or think we may be, we may be seriously mistaken.
   The early followers of Jesus chose death over ignoring his command. For them, there was no alternate behavior to “have love for one another.”
   Every time we fail to obey Jesus’s new commandment we give counter-witness to his mandate, to the will of God.
   That means that every time we fail to assist and support another as best we can we give counter-witness to this same mandate of Jesus, to the will of God.
   Oh, Lord, burn all my violins if they have become more to me than your will. Help me always to love others as you have loved me!

12 February 2023

DDP

It’s the one daily exercise that we hardly ever miss. In fact, it’s the one daily routine that’s hard to skip, even if we want to.
   Sooner or later, every day of our lives we tire and need rest. We usually try to find a secure and reasonably comfortable place and then surrender our consciousness, but no matter what we intend, it usually happens anywhere, anyhow, no matter what our intentions, sooner or later!
   Of course, it’s falling asleep—but, in a way, falling asleep is DDP, a kind of Daily Dying Practice. Of course, we don’t call it that, but, in effect, it really is something like that.
   Mysteriously, daily we somehow surrender our consciousness, some healing processes takes place in our bodies, and then we return to consciousness, we wake up.
   It’s curious, why in the world would we consider “resurrection” as something strange and mysterious, when, in a way, it’s so similar to our daily routine?
   Dying and sleeping, reviving and awaking—they’re similar and easy to confuse.
   Not everyone would agree to this. Some, trusting only in medical science and scientific observation, would deny that any revival from death is possible; others, trusting additionally in divine revelation and religious belief, would disagree.
   In any case, we all engage in the same daily, somewhat deathlike, process, willy-nilly, which we identify as sleeping.
   And, as a matter not merely of science but also of faith, religious believers see dying as a kind of sleeping from which there is an ultimate future awakening or resurrection.
   Unique historical data supporting this confidence and belief is associated primarily with what we have come to call the “resurrection” and “ascension” of Jesus.
   In any case, health and exercise conscious folks that we are, we need to be sure that we’re following a good DDP routine.

   First, before putting out the light and falling asleep, remember that this could be your last day! Presuming that it is, give thanks to God for the day (and all the past days) and all the good things, graces, and blessing that you receive.
   Then, give thanks for all the people, near and far, who have loved, guided, and strengthened you recently and all through your life—and commend to God all those who are now part of your life and who may be relying on your help and support.
   And, examining your conscience, don’t forget to ask God to forgive your impatience, exaggerated self-concern, and other failings and beg his favor and grace for those you know to be in need.
   Don’t be afraid to close your eyes and drift away. You can be fearless: you’re not going to fall off a cliff, you’re not in any ultimate danger, and there will be a tomorrow—though it may not be like all the thousands of tomorrows that you have experienced to date. Remember, God is love and loves you!
   Grateful—concerned for others—without fear of what comes next: these all parts of “dying practice.”
   Waking up, the first reaction should be more gratitude—gratitude for the new day or for the startling, never previously experienced, new stage of life, whichever the case may be.
   This is Daily Dying Practice: awareness, gratitude, contrition, trust. Like all exercises, if you practice them each day, they become like second-nature, and the stronger and more developed you become.
   And, beware of the deadly opposites that can make you sleepless—fear, absorption in self and self-regret, and clinging to the past.

8 January 2023

Persevering

It’s thing you ought to do! It’s a thing that’s hard to do! It’s a thing you have to do! It’s a thing that you’re sometimes criticized for doing! What is it, really?
   Let’s start with some dictionary definitions:
   Persevere – to continue in some effort, course of action, etc. in spite of difficulty, opposition, etc.; to be steadfast in purpose; to persist.
   Does this mean to be stubborn?
   Stubborn – 1. refusing to yield, obey, or comply; resisting doggedly or unreasonably; resolute or obstinate. 2. done or carried out in an obstinate or doggedly persistent manner. 3. hard to handle, treat, or deal with; intractable.
   But, in a good sense it could almost mean:
   Heroic – 1. of or characterized by persons of godlike strength and courage. 2. like or characteristic of a hero/heroine or his/her deeds; strong, brave, noble, powerful, etc. 3. of or about a hero/heroine and his/her deeds; epic. 4. Exalted, eloquent; high-flown. 5. daring and risky, but used as a last resort.
   Okay, it’s clear that perseverance is a more or less neutral word; it can refer to behaviors, right or wrong, ranging on a scale from stubborn to heroic.
   Perseverance can be a matter of:
   – Persistence – in a favorable sense, implying steadfast perseverance; in an unfavorable sense, annoyingly stubborn continuance.
   – Tenacity and Pertinacity – imply firm adherence to some purpose, action, belief, etc., tenacity in a favorable sense, and pertinacity, with the unfavorable connotation of annoying obstinacy.
   (There is a related Latin root word, severus, that also has a range of meanings, favorable and unfavorable:
   Grave, serious, strict, rigid, stern, austere.)

   Persevering requires knowledge, determination, courage, strength, endurance, and sacrifice.
   Persevering in a good sense also involves maturity, life experience, generosity, insight, humility, and faith!
   One way of describing a saint is a person who perseveres in doing the will of God until life’s end.
   The will of God includes things like:
   – “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”
   – I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.
   – Do to others as you would have them do to you.
   – Then Peter approaching asked him, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.
   – Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it.
   This kind of perseverance is paradoxical.
   From one point of view, it describes a loser, someone stubborn, inflexible, imprudent, spineless, and naïve.
   From another, more meaningful, point of view, it describes a winner, someone courageous, generous, strong, and loving.
   The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
   Persevere!

9 October 2022

A Loving Heart

I want a loving heart more than sacrifice, knowledge of my ways more than holocausts.
(An antiphon from The Liturgy of the Hours according to the Roman rite)

   In chapter 11-12 of his Gospel, Matthew tells how Jesus is challenged in Jerusalem by the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders (11:27). They sent some Pharisees and Herodians to ensnare him in his speech (12:13). Some Sadducees, also joined in (12:18) . . .
   One of the scribes, when he came forward and heard them disputing and saw how well he had answered them, asked him, “Which is the first of all the commandments?” Jesus replied, “The first is this: ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
   The scribe said to him, “Well said, teacher. You are right in saying, ‘He is One and there is no other than he.’ And ‘to love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself’ is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
   And when Jesus saw that he answered with understanding, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” (12:28-34)
   This scribe really understood the radical teaching of Jesus. The Judaism of that time gave great importance to Temple sacrifices of all kinds including burnt offerings.
   For devout people, animal and vegetable sacrificial offerings in the Temple and rules about clean and unclean food were the most important of their religious observances.

   Jesus, when asked which was the first of all the commandments of God, said there is nothing more important than love—love of God and love of neighbor.
   The scribe who commended him clearly understood how startling Jesus’s response was—Jesus placed love ahead of all the other commandments, all the Temple sacrifices, and all the other religious observances and practices of his day.
   Do we realize the radical nature of Jesus’s teaching? Do we understand the overriding importance of love in the scheme of things? Remember, at his last supper, Jesus made this his legacy commandment:
   I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. (John 13:34)
   As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.
   I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
   You are my friends if you do what I command you. (John 15:9-14)
   This is the highest priority for a follower of Jesus—more important than any other commandment, rule, custom, practice, religious devotion, preference, or teaching.
   Better to miss Mass on Sunday than not love! Better to live together without marriage than not love! Better to be unorthodox than not love!
   I want a loving heart more than sacrifice . . . more than holocausts.

11 September 2022

Surrender to God . . .

Committe Domino viam tuam, et ipse faciet.” (Ant. 1, Office of Readings, Tuesday, Week II, of The Liturgy of the Hours according to the Roman Rite).
In the approved English edition, it’s translated as, Surrender to God, and he will do everything for you.

Surrender. 1. to yield (something) to the possession or power of another; deliver up possession of on demand or under duress. 2. to give (oneself) up, as to the police. 3. to give (oneself) up to some influence, course, emotion, etc. 4. to give up, abandon, or relinquish. 5. to yield or resign (an office, privilege, etc.) in favor of another. 6. to give oneself up, as into the power of another; submit or yield.

I like the translation of the antiphon. It could have been something more literal like, Commit your way to the Lord . . ., but Surrender to God . . . (The Grail translation) is much more evocative and emotional.
The antiphon introduces the first part of Psalm 37, which is filled with great advice relating to this total surrender:

    – Do not fret because of the wicked; do not envy those who do evil . . .
    – If you trust in the Lord and do good, then you will be secure . . .
    – If you find your delight in the Lord, he will grant your heart’s desire.
    – Commit your life to the Lord, trust in him and he will act . . .
    – Be still before the Lord and wait in patience . . .
    – Calm your anger and forget your rage; do not fret, it only leads to evil.

We’re usually continually caught up in a myriad of distractions, concerns, worries, plans, frustrations, regrets, disappointments responsibilities, and other such like.

    What a relief it can be to just surrender. No, that’s not a copout nor a failure nor an irresponsibility. Surrendering to God is an honest admission that we are but limited creatures who inevitably are inadequate without divine help.
    Not surrendering to God is
delusional, foolish, and self-destructive. God is not an enemy, but a friend. All that is good and meaningful and satisfying about our lives is rooted in our conformity with the designs of our maker.
    Surrendering to God, to the one whose love created and sustains us, is not a relinquishing of our life and liberty but a fulfillment.
    What an illogical, if not insane, course of action it is to try to live our lives ignoring our creator’s will.
    Surrendering to God is not a negative act but a positive one. It enhances and expands our lives. It requires courage, strength, generosity, and wisdom. It’s not for the weak, fearful, foolish, for the spiritually deaf, dumb, and blind.
    The Latin verb, committo, committere, also lies behind our English word, commitment, meaning an act of pledging or engaging oneself; dedication or allegiance; consignment or confinement.
    Somehow or other, commitment has a sort of legal flavor, somewhat abstract, associated with obligations and responsibilities.
    On the other hand, surrender sounds more like an act of heart than just of head, a total giving of all that one is, not just an acceptance of one more duty or responsibility.
    Lord, give me the wisdom, strength, and courage to surrender to you!

4 September 2022

Imperfection

If someone accused you of being imperfect, would you consider it to be an insult and be offended?
   On the other hand, if someone called you perfect, would you consider it to be a sort of complement and appreciate it?
   Both words come from the Latin verb perficio, especially its past participle form perfectus meaning brought to an end, completed, finished.
   They’re not judgmental words. It doesn’t mean, e.g., that you won, but simply that you persevered to the end.
   Forgive me, then, for stating the obvious: you’re an imperfect person, not a perfect one—after all, you’re not dead yet!
   Sometimes “imperfect” is taken to mean relating to or characterized by defects or weaknesses, but that may be unfair. Imperfect basically means that it’s not over yet, it’s a work in progress.
   We all are meant to be perfectionists—we all are meant to persevere, despite the challenges and setbacks, and to continue to run life’s race until it is completed, for better or for worse.
   If you were selected to race in the Olympics, that selection itself would be a great honor and recognition whether or not you later got a special medal for outstanding performance.
   No matter what, nor where, nor when, each of us is imperfect—and we continue to be imperfect every day of our life until it’s over; that’s when we become perfect.
   The judgement of our lives is not comparative; we’re not competing in a contest—we’re just striving to make it through, as best we can, to the end.
   But . . . not anything goes. We’re not monkeys, birds, sloths, or antelope, we’re human beings. We must persevere as human beings until our end. We must live our lives according to God’s design and will until our end.

It’s possible to make it through till the end in the basic sense of surviving, but we may not when it comes to the quality of our lives and the realization of our potential.
Remember, Jesus said (cf. Luke 9:23-24):

. . . If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.

   Regarding this, the quality of our lives and Jesus’ challenging standards, we also are imperfect and living imperfect lives.
   All our life, spiritually too, is a work in progress. Fumbling, bungling, or not, we’re all engaged in a daily struggle involving self-denial and perseverance in imitating the Lord as best we can.
   You may be an imperfect follower of Jesus right now, in the sense of having defects or weaknesses. But, your life’s journey is not yet ended.
   If you persevere until the end trying to live as he teaches, your life is a success story, whether or not you get some recognition and award for outstanding performance.
   Everyone who gets to heaven is a saint, a holy person, whether canonized a saint and held up as a model to be imitated or not!
   Men or women who enter a religious order and take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience used to be considered “in a State of Perfection”. More accurately they are in a state of seeking perfection, seeking to be poor, chaste, and obedient until the end of their lives.
   But, like all of us, they really are in a state of imperfection until their lives are done!

14 August 2022

Why Did God Make Me?

Q. Why did God make you?
A. God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in the next.

   If you’re old enough to have been taught “catechism” as a child, you may remember this question and answer from the Baltimore Catechism.
   It’s about our purposes—and their priority is important:
   Our first purpose is knowledge, not distilled, abstract knowledge but practical, functional knowledge. The first challenge of our lives is to get to know God, to really get to know God, as best we can.
   This means clear thinking about God all during our lives—it’s a never-ending task. As a child, we think about God in a childish way; as a mature adult, we think about God in a mature, adult way. It’s a life-long practice and challenge for each of us.
   Our second purpose is love, not necessarily a passionate or deeply emotional feeling but definitely a persevering choice to seek to know and trust God better and better.
   This means subordinating our will to God’s will, constantly seeking to enjoy God, and striving to make God the center of our lives—another life-long practice and challenge for each of us.
   Our third purpose is service, a total and deep commitment to obey the will of God as best we understand it, especially in expending ourselves for others.
   This means, as St. Ignatius of Loyola said, “. . . to give and not to count the cost, to fight and not to heed the wounds, to toil and not to seek for rest, to labor and not to ask for any reward, save that of knowing that we do your [i.e., God’s] will.”
   Just as our knowing gradually changes and develops as we grow older and are more experienced, so does our loving and serving.

   It’s okay that our understanding of our purposes changes as we age. We gradually lose some of the dynamism and spontaneity of our earlier years—but no matter what, we still are called to know, love, and serve God as best we can.
   Our report card about how we live our lives may not be all stars, but it’s important that, no matter what stage of life we’re at, we’re still getting an “A” for effort!
   In all this, beware of comparing yourself to others. Every person is unique. You’re not exactly the same as anybody else. God gives different gifts to different people, and different challenges as well, and has different expectations for each one of us.
   St. Francis de Sales, in his “Introduction to the Devout Life” explained all this well:

   When God the Creator made all things, he commanded the plants to bring forth fruit each according to its own kind; he has likewise commanded Christians, who are the living plants of his Church, to bring forth the fruits of devotion, each one in accord with his character, his station and his calling.
   . . . devotion must be practiced in different ways by the nobleman and by the working man, by the servant and by the prince, by the widow, by the unmarried girl and by the married woman.
   . . . devotion must be adapted to the strength, to the occupation and to the duties of each one in particular.

God made you to know, to love, and to serve, and you have to do it as best you can—your way, not mine!

31 July 2022

Guinea Kids

Guinea pig: 1. A short-eared, tailless rodent often used in scientific experiments or kept as a pet. 2. The subject of any sort of experiment.

   You know, you’re a sort of guinea pig yourself. Don’t be offended. It’s not a put-down. I am, too. Everybody is.
   Isn’t every child born a kind of subject of an experiment? The experimenters—the mother and the father—are not well-trained professionals with extensive schooling and training in the fine art of having and raising children.
   The experimenters range from historically, socially, educationally, culturally similar people to widely diverse.
   This means that the newborn child often may be similar to his/her extended family members and easily welcomed. On the other hand, the newborn child sometimes may bear little resemblance to most of his/her extended family members and perhaps be hesitatingly welcomed.
   In every case, every child born is unique and a blend, a combination of many diverse genes, cultures, and personal traits. Every newborn child is a kind of subject of an experiment on the part of his/her parents.
   First of all, every newborn child is part woman (mother) and part man (father). Also, every newborn child learns what it means to grow up not only from these two diverse parents but also from diverse others in his/her immediate and extended family as well as friends, neighbors, acquaintances, and still others—who may be somewhat similar or widely diverse.
   In view of the inexperience of parents, the diversity of positive and negative influences, and the vicissitudes of early life, it’s amazing that each one of us survived, not to mention flourished.
   (Of course, thanks be to God, our birth and development did involve God, too!)

   If your parents were very different from one another and others in your neighborhood as well, you probably grew up being comfortable and at home with a high degree of diversity—and vice-versa!
   The experiencing of diversity and the challenges of understanding are not confined to childhood alone. They usually continue all through our lives.
   Thanks be to God for the diversity of our contemporary world and the different languages, traditions, cultural mores, and people that are part of our daily life!
   We all were used to diversity all the time in our early life. Whatever happened to us that we often seem to have lost our ability to live with and accommodate ourselves to it?
   Remember, we’re all “guinea kids”. We’re all subjects of a great and never-ending experiment. We’re all different from one another to one degree or another.
   We’re all special and unique with special and unique talents and gifts, special and unique capacities and abilities, and special and unique roles to play in life.
   What’s really dumb, wasteful, and deadly is for us to seek to avoid diversity, change, and challenge and to cling to what was instead of dealing with what is and what’s next.
   Each one of us is an experimental model, each one of us is constantly changing, each one of us lives by observing, studying, and experimenting.
   If a guinea pig were asked, “Aren’t you tired of being tested and experimented with? Don’t you want to be left in peace?”
   The pig might well reply, “Are you crazy? You want me dead? That’s who I am and what I do! My nature is to be experimental.”
   Yours and mine, too!

17 July 2022

Saints and Sinners

Saint: 1. a person of exceptional holiness of life, virtue, or benevolence. 2. a person recognized as such by family, community, or Church.

Sinner: 1. a person who transgresses the law of God. 2. a person who willfully or deliberately violates some religious or moral principle. 3. a person who is guilty of any reprehensible or regrettable action, behavior, lapse, etc.

   Neither word means that a person is 100% good or 100% bad; however both words imply that the person is exceptionally, outstandingly, unusually good or bad.
   Unfortunately we usually use a word that means one extreme or another as though they were absolutes. (For example, saying that a person is tall or short, skinny or fat, dark or light, pretty or ugly, dumb or smart, old or young, poor or rich, truthful or false, straight or gay—the list in endless.)
   Word pairs like these actually name a scale’s two extremes, and we’re all in some position on the scale except at either end.
   So, in a sense, we all have a bit of both. “Saints” can occasionally be guilty of reprehensible or regrettable actions and “sinners” can occasionally do exceptionally holy, virtuous, or benevolent things.
   The words, if used fairly, point to a sort of majority-of-the-time behavior—and this can fluctuate and change. We may start out or initially be treated as saints and end up being considered as sinners—and vice-versa!
   – Remember Joseph’s initial hesitation to marry Mary.
   – Remember what Jesus said to the “good” thief who was crucified at his side.
   – Remember Jesus himself being adjudged and punished as a notorious criminal.
   Also, our understanding of what it means to be a saint or sinner often changes and varies from place to place and time to time.

   For example, in the early centuries of Christianity, when many persons were sentenced to a painful death for not worshiping the official gods, martyrdom, a death like Jesus’, was esteemed.
   As time passed, martyrdom declined but extolling the heroism and death of Jesus and the martyrs led to esteeming a lifestyle of extreme denial and living sacrifice.
   Some popular early hermits, by contemporary standards seemed to be “wild men”, almost crazy, living in desert caves, barely clothed nor adequately fed.
   As this lifestyle also declined and there no longer were hermits living in desert caves, it influenced the development of early monasticism where denial and sacrifice were still important ideals and practices.
   These ideals lived on in the later, action-oriented religious orders with their many services to others. Practicing poverty, chastity, and obedience were still considered a necessary part of holiness.
   This also continued to some degree in the development of “secular” (i.e. not bound by religious community vows) clergy, especially with the requirement of clerical celibacy.
   In our contemporary world, that too, is being critically examined and its failures denounced.
   We’re all a mixture of saint and sinner. Our challenge is to try to move more towards the “saint” extreme of the scale than the other.
   We try to be more like Jesus as best we understand him and live a holy life as best we understand that.
   We’re not dreaming an impossible dream, aspiring to a holiness of life—but sometimes we need to realize that we’re not going about it the best way we could, and should!

3 July 2022

To Be or Not to Be . . .

Hamlet’s reflection about suicide and death, at least the first words of his soliloquy, are very familiar to most English speakers. But, it’s not just a reflection about death and dying—it’s also a reflection about life and living.
   Notice, it’s not about “to live” or “to do” or “to work” or “to endure” and the like—it’s about “to be”.
   You and I, we did not choose “to be”. For better or for worse, we are. Although we can choose to die, we cannot, literally, chose “not to be”; it’s too late for that.
“To be” is more or less a way of saying “to exist”. It’s a fact, It cannot be totally undone, although it seems as though it can be ended.
   It’s understandable that sometimes our life can seem unbearable. At times, we may feel lost, bewildered, confused, overwhelmed. We may suffer loneliness, misunderstanding, helplessness, failure.
   We can succumb to wishing and seeking not to live any more, but we can’t erase our history to date.
   If we haven’t become famous, important, popular, powerful, beautiful, wealthy, or the like, it makes no difference. We’re not called upon to be this or that. We’re fundamentally meant “to be”. It’s alluded to in a popular hymn:

     “Glory to God, Glory,
     O praise Him, alleluia.
     Glory to God, Glory,
     O praise the name of the Lord.”

In a society where achievement is an important value, it’s important to realize that the most important value of all is simply to be the person God made us to be and wants us to be.
There’s no competition to be the tallest mountain, the brightest sunrise, the sweetest flower, the swiftest river. Why should we compete with any other rather than be glad to be who and what we are?

   My challenge is to be me, not to be you. Each of us is a unique creation, a unique collection of gifts and talents, meant to make a unique contribution to the world in which we live.
   I have to strive to be the person God wants me to be, not who anybody else wants me to be. I have to sing my song, whether anyone else hears it or not. I have to blossom and bloom, whether anyone else sees me or not.
   I have a role to play in the world, whether noticed or unnoticed. There are things that, if I don’t do them, they will never be done. There are people who, if I don’t love them, may never know love.
   Every single one of us has a purpose, a destiny, a mission that is unique and irreplaceable. The choice is not so much “to be or not to be” in the sense of living or dying—it’s more to be what each of us is meant to be, to fulfill the unique destiny that each of us is challenged with.
   Poor confused, bewildered, torn, and frustrated Hamlet, the dead king’s son. Just because you are a king’s son doesn’t necessarily mean that you will inherit his kingdom. Just because you are a victim of others’ greed and passion doesn’t necessarily mean that you must avenge their victims and right their wrongs.
   Shakespeare’s play is entitled “The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark”. It’s a tragedy because it deals with a serious and sad theme about a person destined to experience downfall and destruction through a character flaw or conflict with the overpowering force of fate.
   Be! Live out your life story. But, be careful! Don’t let your story become a tragedy!

19 June 2022