Secular pursuits only bring a temporary amount of satisfaction and fulfillment. As much as we may think that achieving worldly success, economic security, personal well-being, and self-fulfillment are worthy goals to obtain, they all are dependent on external variables and can lead to emptiness. We are trained to be very pragmatic and productive. Unless we are able to check off all of the boxes or comply with specific measurable requirements, our value and worth becomes questionable. Corporations, educational institutions, systems, structures, and secular ideology rarely consider deeper, more spiritual, and human contributions a person can and needs to make.

The only way to know God is to love God. Our minds will never fully grasp the mystery of God, but our hearts and souls can learn to love the mystery. Years ago, when life had a more innocent quality to it, we believed what we were told or witnessed, unless there was direct evidence otherwise. This was especially true if the information came from someone in authority. In a sense, we were a bit more gullible on one hand but also more trusting on the other. The latter is an admirable quality that sadly can be eroded when we realize we have been duped. With education and technological advances, we find ourselves more skeptical, and less likely to accept too quickly and believe what we see and hear.

We are hardwired for wholeness and crave it. When something is broken, we want it fixed. If a part of our body is not working properly, we want it healed. How often do we find ourselves saying, “I’m tired of struggling with this cold, I can’t wait for my surgery to heal, or I want my treatments to make me better.” Wholeness and healing restore our relationships and make us free to love as we desire. We know very well how our limitations, imperfections, and brokenness really limit us. They can easily prevent us from being and doing what we want to do.

Silence is sacred. Silence speaks the language of the soul and is the foundation of all life and eternity itself. Silence takes us beyond the limits of our minds and allows us to seek and to love the essence of all love, perfect love, and being. In silence, we can be non-verbally present to things and to God in ways that words cannot accomplish. We can discover, encounter, and be present to truths that our minds struggle to conceive and then set aside the boxes we put around things when comprehending them is challenging. We can know the unknowable and touch eternity when we encounter the core silence in our souls.

Many people in our world are hungry and thirsty. This hunger and thirst go well beyond physical needs for food, security, and shelter. Many are emotionally and spiritually parched, too. Behind every act of violence is a soul who hungers. People live with relationships that actually starve them. They are abused, exploited, disrespected, laughed at, and marginalized. There is a lot of confusion and inner pain that needs to be acknowledged and expressed. We all long to be understood and loved, even when our inner demons or who I am make it difficult to be.

A single mother who has a child with special needs works two jobs and sacrifices much of her own pleasures in order to be available for her son. Being the best mother possible is important to her and brings her joy. We are willing to make great and often heroic sacrifices for those people and things that matter most to us. Unless there is something of obvious importance to us in our immediate path, we can easily approach life in a more haphazard and chaotic way. We jump from one thing to another, responding to whatever it is that is competing for our attention at that moment. When everything is important, nothing is important.

Grace and sin, belief and unbelief, good and evil all exist together. While we wrestle with these two dimensions of reality inwardly, they are also witnessed in the actions and words of others. Many, all too often, beat themselves up because of their sin. We are also all to quick to pass judgement on others whom we perceive to be in error and walking down a wrong path. God does not make rash judgements, nor should we. Patience is the order of the day as is an understanding that God is ultimately the call of the shots.

Using the best seeds doesn’t always guarantee the best plants. An older Italian gentleman straight from Italy gave me these amazing tomato seeds that he claimed produced the best tomatoes ever grown. Without doubt, the fruit he shared with me was a testament to that fact. These tomatoes were amazing! I couldn’t wait until the next growing season to plant these seeds and harvest my own tomatoes. The whole experiment ended up a failure. I did everything the gentleman said, but my fruit didn’t even come close. What happened? At first I was perplexed, then some years later the light dawned. The problem wasn’t the seeds, it was the soil!

We are all familiar with the refrain, "You have put on Christ. In him you have been baptized. Alleluia, alleluia!" In Baptism, we "put on" Christ. In putting on Christ, we put on all that Christ is and represents: hope, faith, and love. We are no longer bound to the sins and failures of the flesh, that part of us that resists God and relies exclusively on human means. It also means that we are not in debt to our past, complete with its sins, failures, regrets, fears, and unfulfilled dreams. There is always hope. In putting on Christ, we put on God's vision for the world, for all of His children and for us. We have been given a road map to guide our paths and a blueprint to follow for our life's journey.

When we were baptized, we were baptized into Christ's death. Take a moment to ponder these profound words. We were baptized into death. In every sense of the word, we are asked to die. This is not just about our final death but about daily deaths due to inconvenience, discomfort, pain, loss, or others' needs. This is an incredible epiphany given the way we very often approach our lives. We do everything to avoid death, let alone encounter it! Many avoid pain, discomfort, inconvenience, uneasiness, change, interference, and suffering of any kind. We put a lot of energy into finding the easiest and least inconvenient way through many things. Even holding the door open for a stranger or saying hello to someone in the store can be major undertakings.

There are many things of which we can be afraid: being rebuked, rejection, anger, being challenged, having to defend ourselves, standing alone, insecurity, failure, and even death. For some, identifying and overcoming their fears is a daunting task. Regardless of how much they may want to break the cycle of fear, they find that they remain close friends with old and dysfunctional behavioral habits and norms. Maybe what they really fear is change. There are many who gravitate to the familiar and comfortable, and find safety and security in doing so, even if they remain mired in mediocrity. Human beings have to learn that there is life beyond the "what has always been" and that happiness and depth are possible when old structures and systems have to be left behind.

It is no wonder that followers of Christ are called the Body of Christ. After all, sharing in the same spiritual food and sacred meal, they become what they eat and reveal the Divine Image. There is so much power for healing in the community of believers. Through the Eucharist, Christ becomes as present in those who have partaken of his Body and Blood as he has the elements themselves. The very presence of God touches the depths of the human soul and visits a part of us that no human being can ever hope to explore. We are God's. The sacred Eucharistic meal is a celebration of intimacy, the reunion of two loves in constant search of and longing for the other.

A well-choreographed dance can be truly inspirational. Each movement and step are interconnected, each contributing a piece of the unfolding artistic story. The beholder is caught up in the rhythms, music, and gestures, realizing that none are dispensable and all are necessary. The same is true of the Divine Dance of the Trinity. Each Person plays a part, using unique gestures and movements that are connected to the other Divine Partners. They tell a story of love. Every movement and step is born of love and flows on into eternity. The Divine Dance never ends.