Fantasy

Fantasy is when you have chosen one path but imagine yourself on another. Fantasy can be an escape from a path that is revealed to be wrongly chosen, such as a marriage or relational commitment that is destructive. It is an escape from pain, sorrow, regret, boredom.

Fantasy can also be part of the path you are on, but just not the part of the path you currently live. A Neophyte in the church, one who has recently joined the Catholic Church, may be finding that they are struggling more than they thought would be the case, several months after their Easter commitment. So they begin to think of themselves as more spiritually evolved. They imagine themselves as a particular saint they read or heard about. They fantasize that they love God deeply and keep God in mind at all times. They imagine themselves to be without a particular nagging fault. This kind of fantasy can be a goal or an ideal. I doubt the saints ever reached this goal. A goal is good. It points the way, but we have also to live in our present mess. In the present mess, we can experience repentance, the need for God's mercy. We can experience unconditional love, only when we realize that we are loved in spite of our deep faults, or bad habits that did not go away with Baptism.

I don't think I will ever become perfect. Who wants to live without the joyful discovery of Grace?