'Life's Good' By Anthony

I am a triple major in Economics, International Studies, and Justice and Peace Studies.

I converted to Catholicism after God told me he had a plan for me different than the one I was currently living.

I was a debater in high school who specialized in writing critiques.

I am flawed.

What all this means is that I can be extremely negative. I spend a large amount of time looking about and analyzing the world, searching every crevasse for error and flaw, and justifying it with the explanation that it is God’s intention for me to do this work. Rather than viewing the peace that Heide spoke about on the 15th, I see systemic flaws, and worse, the immense challenges before all of us in attempting to fix the problems of our governments, economic systems, and members of the collective society that we all live in. I enjoy my departments of study, but I do not enjoy the blind pessimism that myself and others doing similar work can trap ourselves within.

I am walking over to the church from our home just before dark. A man of color, wearing dirty clothes calls me over. He has a large garbage bag held in both hands. He asks me if I can bring the cans and bottles he has collected into the nearby ‘Party Store’ so he can make some money on their deposit value. This man is homeless, and naturally in our society his condition is only further enumerated by his ostracization from commerce. His eyes are yellow, possibly from jaundice, and his hands are callused and cracked. I ask him what he needs prayer for and he responds by saying, “Nothing man, life is good.”

Wouldn’t the world be better if more people could take up this peace, contentment, and joy? A world fueled by greed and overconsumption only slowed in moments of unobtainable want and an untouchable dream held on a high pillar out of reach from any questioning. The baby boomers, generation ‘X’ers, and the MTV kids, we are all in need of this humble man’s attitude. I need this man’s attitude.

In my pursuit of justice and ‘truth’, in my attempts to find all the answers to solve all of the problems, I forget that we are all called to have this joy. Not only that, but that his joy, the attitude of this man on the street is far more effective at solving the problems of the world than any amount of pessimism, even if it holds knowledge of our world’s rights and wrongs.

The theologian Janet Smith came over for dinner this week, afterwards giving us a private lecture on God’s love; a topic all of us missionaries are studying this summer. This last week I have been troubled by my role, and subsequent negativity, related to my previous feeling that my call in life is to change economic systems in order to foster greater compassion. During Janet’s lecture I realized that this is my will, that my search for the answers was me and not God. Dr. Smith told a story about how during her own prayer she realized that God did not need her and it was silly to think it so. The same is true with me. God does not need me to fix the world, so I need to stop acting under a mindset that assumes this.

What is next? I do not know. For now I am struggling to close my books of economic research and ideas and to pray more intentionally with open eyes and listening ears; to ready myself to better experience God’s will.

To be ready to be the tool and not the solution.