The Ideal

I am an idealist. Most of my life has been spent imagining a perfect world, trying to make a perfect world, and dealing with realizations that this isn’t a perfect world. I love to daydream and read about how things ought to be. Whenever I have to face the true world (or what seems to be), it almost instantly becomes too much for me to bear. But there is hope, so much hope that you must have it.

Do you know how amazing our God is? Do you know what we have in the Catholic Church? We have a way to the ideal. Each of the sacraments offers a way out of the confused world of sin and into a clear, bright world. A sacrament is a teleporter to the ideal, and it transforms us to the ideal too. And the ideal is how it was always meant to be. Today after confession, I felt as if I was the ideal. I had no sin. And although I would soon walk out into a world that still has countless problems, I was that much closer to the ideal, to God.

God is a genius beyond all understanding. We screw up, He says, “Try again, only first, I’ll eradicate all traces of your mistakes. You are now completely pure in my eyes.” If we are pure in God’s eyes, then we ARE pure. We are weak, He says, “Come and eat, and you will live forever”. We enter into God and God into us. The Eucharist is the single greatest gift to man. Could we ever know all that It does for us?

At birth, sin already has us in it’s grips. God says, “Be reborn, and not only will I take away your sin, but fill you with My Spirit”. When we are close to death, God says “I will heal your soul and give you courage”.

If there is anything in existence better than God and what He has given to us, I want to know. I haven’t found something close to the ideal, I have found THE ideal. And God offers it to us endlessly.

I won’t apologize for being an idealist, because it sure seems to me that God is one. He even destroyed death for us.

By the way, how amazing is this song?

Story of my life

It was a rare rainy February day in the Californian desert and I needed to be born. I was past due. But I wasn’t ready. Instead I was a brat and turned around, insisting on not coming out. That’s right, I became breech after I was supposed to be born. My poor mother. The nurses tried to turn me around. My mother remembers it being quite uncomfortable and that she was becoming irritated as I refused to get in the proper position. I liked where I was. It was warm, cozy, safe. I like to think I knew what they were trying to do: rip me from the place I came to know and love, and introduce me to blinding light, cold metal surfaces and a world I wouldn’t like very much. Why would I make it any easier for them to do that? I’ve always been suspicious of people.

Finally, after hours of pressuring me to turn around, I eased my mom’s suffering and gave in to their demands. I was born. And thus began everything I’ve ever known. I often wish I had stayed in my cocoon of comfort.

After 20 years of trying to make this living-in-the-world thing work, I am still not ready for the world. I will wait and do everything in my power to postpone the inevitable, but still, I will be introduced to the world. Whether I like it or not.

Why is it hard for me to accept things? Why is it hard for me to not question and suspect that the worse will happen? I think it all comes back to my lack of trust in God. Why is it so hard for me to keep going when, what looks like a cliff, is quickly approaching? I think “God, please save me". Then I sit back and wait (and in what I feel like, is complete reliance on God). Well, sometimes He comes, but sometimes He lets me fall right off that cliff. Is it because I screwed up somewhere, either in not trusting Him or just failing to do what He told me to do? Or could it be that this is what He planned for me all along? Am I supposed to say, “Ok, this must be your will” or instead say “Lord, I am a miserable wreck and deserve to fail because I sinned against you”?

I really don’t know. I have no idea where to go, or how to feel. I want to trust in God so much, but it’s hard when I can’t prepare for what He’s doing to me. I’m sure it has a lot to do with my own failings. Why does everything have to be so hard? Can I go back to my safe womb now? This isn’t fun anymore.