We all go through cycles in our faith lives. We have the just-came-off-of-retreat Jesus high, and we have the wow-I-can’t-even-remember-the-last-time-I-tried-to-listen-to-God low. Coming off of a summer absolutely filled with grace and the joy of being able to feel fulfilled at the end of every day, you could say I’m at a bit of a spiritual low. I moved back into my dorm yesterday and am in the calm before the storm of the craziness that is college. Before I get completely caught up in studying and activities, I realized in my restlessness that I need to figure out who I want to be. My time this summer taught me so much about myself, and so I want to share a story from this summer before I continue.
Every other day, Maddy and I have been tasked to make sure that each of the residents’ bathrooms is fully stocked with solution, gloves, and plastic bags. The bags come from the local recycling center and are just old grocery bags that people have brought to them. One of our residents is a brother of the Sacred Heart Community and many of his brothers come to visit him. One brother is particularly faithful about visiting him, and happened to walk by me on his way to visit. I had my cart with all the bags and gloves when he walked by. After making a joke, he pulled out a bag filled with these bags from behind his back and gave them to me. He said, “I always collect these for sister because I know you use them.” It was such a simple act, but to me it demonstrated something much more powerful that I have been struggling to understand, and so had a deep impact on me.
Earlier this week, Maddy and I went to visit a friend of my family who lives in Mobile. She is a Daughter of Charity and has given her life to work on the education of young people. Her order is dedicated to helping those in poverty, so the school she works at and showed us is very impoverished. It was heartbreaking to hear the stories about the families who sent their children to that school and see how few resources the students had. Later that night we went to have dinner with her and the sisters she lives with. We asked them what they do and heard stories of all the poverty they faced and worked to combat every day. One of the sisters was working around the docks to help get immigrant shrimpers proper health care. It was very inspiring to hear of the work that these women were doing, but at the same time it was startling to think about all that poverty right here in America. Between that experience and the readings, I became very disheartened about how anyone would be able to actually make a difference and end poverty.
Having Brother hand me those bags was in many ways a message from God to me. God was telling me that people don’t have to do grand and elaborate acts to end poverty and save the world. That is God’s job. Our job is to live a life just like Brother- to simply live consciously. It is easy to go through the motions of life and get caught up in simply doing the task we have to do that day, even if that task is working to end poverty. What is hard, and what we are called to, is to think about how each of our seemingly meaningless daily actions affect every person on this planet and bring about the kingdom of God. Instead of taking the easy route and throwing away those bags, Brother set them aside to bring to us because he knew we needed them. To me, that simple decision is how the world will be saved-by people living their lives with love, and choosing to take the time to think about how they can make small differences in the lives of everyone around them and leave this world a little better than they found it. In that act, Brother gave me hope for this world and inspired me to share that hope with others.
When thinking about who I want to be, I always come back to this story. I know I’m not going to be the next Mother Teresa (ok probably not…) but I know I can change the world, simply by continuing to ask myself: How can I work to better serve God in those in need in my life? How can I better love my family and my friends and reach out to lonely strangers? I’m going to be honest, I very rarely ask myself those questions. But I know that’s why I’m so restless. I was created to love and be loved, to give and to receive, to learn, grow, serve, and be restless so I’m always working on coming back to the One who is peace. I believe with all my heart that happiness is a by product of the effort to make someone else happy, and I know I will never be happy unless I continue to work to live intentionally to help everyone around me. If everyone worked even just a tiny bit more to this end, our world would never be the same.
love is the answer 