The Question

People often ask themself, “What do I want to get out of life?”  Or, “What do I want out of life?”  I think maybe a bit change in words can help to answer this.  “What do I put into life?”  It is the giving, the service, the emotional uplift that we give, that helps us get “something out of life,” that is quite worth having.  We seem to get in proportion to what we give.  Lately, I go around to different parishes helping out with sacraments when the pastor is away or has too many commitments at any one time.  I seem to get a lot out of this.  It is ‘meaningful” as one might say.  I don’t sit around being “retired” whatever that might mean.  And I learn a lot about how to get around San Francisco beyond my neighborhood.  Sometimes I just explore on the way home from doing some work.  It all fits into my life.  Maybe I will become my own GPS.   

The Talent

 If you don’t do well in academia, that does not mean you have no talent.  It means you have no vocation for the classroom.  A gift is never developed in a classroom, except maybe the gift for being a good college learner.  You might learn a skill like computer technology or in a blue collar trade you might learn plumbing or electricity.  A gift is discovered once you get the chance to exhibit or need it.  John Vianney was a French priest.  He was a terrible student in the seminary.  Latin was too difficult.  He was poor and thus poorly educated before the seminary.  He barely got ordained and then put into a very small nowhere parish in France.  Good riddance to this dummy!  Except, he discovered a gift for hearing confessions, reading hearts and making suggestions for the sinners.  Trains packed with people began to come to this nowhere place.  His gift would never appear in the seminary.  He could not yet hear confessions as he was not yet ordained.  So you may have yet an undiscovered gift or a discovered one that asks to be used for the betterment of those around you.  I was a mediocre student all through school.  I had no vocation to be a seminarian.  I use very little of what I learned there today in my vocation.  And unlike computer technology, it never goes obsolete.  

Money

 The Bible does not say that money is evil.  Lots of good things can be done with money, good things for people who don’t have money.  The root of evil and class distinction is more about the love of money, rather than money itself.  If you are more talented than others in some field then money can be the reward.  The problem begins when you hoard it more than use it for good.  Savings is fine, but everything has a balance if one is to avoid avarice.  The craving for wealth is like the craving for alcohol.  A little is never enough.  Addiction comes in many varieties.  

Equality

 One of the things that I like about Christianity is that the Incarnation was for everyone.  The rich did not get more than the poor.  That is rare in a a class society like ours.  Holy Communion in the Catholic Church is for everyone equally.  The rich don’t get more Jesus than the poor.  Even in the days when the rich and the poor were seated separately in pews, they received the same Jesus in Holy Communion.  Religion can be the great equalizer when it comes to ritual.  That is one of the reasons I like the Catholic Church.  

Roman Holiday

 You might look at famous and rich people and say, “I wish I had what they have.  I would be so happy.”  Really?  See the 1954 movie, “Roman Holiday,” with Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn.  It got two academy awards and is very good.  Princess Anna has “everything” except the freedom to just do what she wants.  She cannot simply take a Roman holiday and do whatever meets her fancy.  Her days are all scheduled and watched by a multitude of entourage.  If you can spend a day just being free to enjoy this or that, you might be far richer than you think.  

Freedom

 You cannot be generous unless you are free.  If you are locked into, fettered to, “getting what is mine” or “getting all you can get,” then you are not free to ensure that everyone has something, a piece of whatever you think is “all yours.”  I find people go to recovery meetings to stay sober by attending and listening and maybe share in the meeting.  Then they leave.  They do not welcome the newcomer, or spend time asking others if they can be of some help.  They don’t giveaway the sobriety that they have.  Some people hoard more than they really need of things such as food.  They don’t care much for sharing with someone who might be as hungry as they were before they stuffed themself.  You see this at a social event where the food is “free.”  They just keep eating until there is no more of whatever they are eating.  They are prisoners of greed and selfishness.  Generosity, thinking of others is when you know you are free.  

Earthquake

Earthquakes are to wake us up to the reality that we are ultimately not in charge.  We might say, “Why did the Creator make this earth so precarious?”  Well, when you are so self-absorbed, or there is a major conflict, like a war, nothing draws us away from this as a “natural disaster.”  We don’t call it “unnatural,” because it is quite natural to this earth.  A tsunami, that wipes out a whole army on a sea-shore would get our attention.  It certainly stops the fighting for land, power, control and wealth.  The rich build near the sea or on mountain tops.  The view is great…until.  So I remember this in my meditation.  Control is an illusion.  I live in San Francisco.  I have been in one earthquake.  It stopped a lot of pettiness.  It stopped a Wold Series!