Category: Theology

Where Beauty Led

On By stephaniebenedictIn Personal, TheologyLeave a comment

I’ve talked about the importance of beauty before, but never where it led me. I homeschooled my children using a classical, history-centered method. As we were studying Ancient Greece I was struck by the heights their society attained. The more we read the more I came to realize it was their pursuit of beauty that made the difference. Beauty in art of every kind was highly valued – including the beauty of the human spirit.

I began looking for beauty in my own life and especially my faith life. I mean, if God is the author and creator of all things, then he is the origin and source of beauty. I assumed that religion, then, would be the most beautiful thing, right?

What I found was not beautiful. I found a lot of guilt (no, I wasn’t Catholic, LOL!), a lot of anger, a lot of judgement, and a lot of fear. Especially fear of beauty and joy. Some of it flowed from my own brokenness and some of it flowed from trying to live out an incomplete theology. My faith was not beautiful and was actively discouraging the pursuit of beauty in my own life.

That couldn’t be right?!? But it was. The more I strove for truth, beauty and goodness (all three together, not one or the other) the more miserable I become and the more I realized the people around me were as broken and as joyless as I was, and none of us were getting any better. Indeed marriages were ending, children were walking away from the faith and anxiety attacks were increasing. Something was definitely not right.

Finally, full of anger and bitterness, I walked away from faith altogether. For years. It was the most awful season of my life. I have always desired God. To have known him and the consolation faith can bring and then to have lost every shred of my spirituality was painful. But trying to live the spiritual life as I understood it then was more painful…

What I did not give up was the pursuit of beauty. I found it in drips and drabs. Never enough to satisfy or to hold on to, but always enough to fuel the search. Then one random day I found myself in the Religion section at Barnes and Noble. I missed God so much. Even after years of actively rejecting faith, there remained an emptiness in my life that God used to fill at least a little, sometimes a lot. Standing there with my empty ache, I read book jacket after book jacket. Not with any real hope of finding hope, but just out of homesickness. But Oh, the Mercies of God. I pulled The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton off the shelf.

Something piqued my interest. At this far remove, I don’t remember what, but I knew I had to have this book. I bought it. Read it. and Found my hope. Raised in a home void of faith, Thomas expressed the same emptiness I felt. Until he found Jesus waiting for him in the Eucharist – in the Communion of the Catholic Church.

Entranced, I bought the Catechism of the Catholic Church. From the first page I was struck by the way it talked about God and about me – an individual person. This was so high and lofty and BEAUTIFUL – yet very present and very available. I read for 5 long years, everything I could get my hands on, Protestant and Catholic. In the end, beauty won my heart; goodness soothed my soul; and truth set me free to really live.

The Ancient Greeks made me do it…

And I’m so very glad they did.

The New American Virtue

On By stephaniebenedictIn Personal, Theology, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Virtue is important to me. I want to be known as a good person – trustworthy, dependable, honest… You get the idea.

I don’t hear a lot about the cultivation of virtue. Occasionally as you pass an elementary school you might see the “character quality” of the month listed on the marque, but by and large Americans don’t seem to focus on growing in virtue or character.

With one glaring exception – somehow, busyness has become the new American virtue.

Have you noticed? America seems obsessed with cultivating busyness. We are wildly busy simply going about the business of being busy. We are even busy making sure our children are busy.

Twenty minutes late for a lunch date? No problem, claim the virtue of busyness, and all is not only forgiven, but admired. To be busy is to be absolved of every slip of the mind, every missed deadline, every forgotten appointment/date/family obligation.

To be busy is to have an interesting life. To be busy is the be about important things. To be busy is to be important.  Idleness is evil. Idleness is a waste.

Or is it? In the Judeo-Christian tradition, God considered rest so important he set aside an entire day for rest. If you wade deeper into the minutia of the law, you would find that he actually set aside one of every seven years as a year of rest. Can you imagine?

I find that doing nothing is sometimes the most important thing I can do. To let my mind wander aimlessly. To let my body sit and recharge. To focus on nothing but the here and now.

To be present in nothingness is to be aware and in touch with the most elemental part of life. My breath; my heartbeat; the warmth of my beloved’s hand in mine. These are gifts that cannot be measured and can be so easily missed.

I reject busyness. I choose to clear my calendar. I choose to life a simple life; a basic life. I choose to be available to myself, my loved ones and to the infinite beauty of life that is present every second of every day if we will just take the time to notice.

 

 

The God of the Living

On By stephaniebenedictIn TheologyLeave a comment

In my spiritual journey I find the more I love God, the more concern I have for others. The closer I grow to the One who promised me abundant life, the more I desire I have to share that life with those I encounter day to day.

I often wonder what life will be like after death. We believe it does not stop, but is merely translated from one reality to a greater one. I wonder, will the concern and desire God is building in me for others cease, just because I am no longer embodied among them? Or will it too be translated into something greater.

If God privileges me now, as imperfect as I am, to join him in his work of drawing all hearts to his, why, when I am finally in heaven, would he rescind such an incredible gift? God does not stop caring for those I care for when I die. Why should I?

Will my eternity be spent in total narcissism? Floating among the clouds, singing my favorite worship song over and over?

The Catholic understanding of the saints, and our afterlife, can be summed up in the words of Jesus in Matthew 22:32, “God is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living.”

The saints are as alive, indeed, more alive, than they were on earth. They are perfectly united to the heart which loves so much. They now know and understand the perfect will of God. The church teaches that just as the resurrected Jesus continues to intercede for us, the saints in heaven offer their prayers to the Father on our behalf. They spend their time well, loving others in a totally unselfish manner.

We have friends in high places, and they have all of eternity to pray for us. Why not ask for their help right now?

St. Jude, patron saint of lost causes, pray for us.

St. Anthony, finder of the lost, pray for us.

St. Clare, who gave up all the world had to offer for love of Jesus, pray for us.