We are all afraid

I have a friend who is struggling with joining the priesthood. He has had an encounter that makes him echo the same feelings I do often

Amazing Grace how sweet they sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but not am found, was blind now I see

The friend is great with girls. And he often wonders how he could picture himself as a priest without all the love he could have with a girlfriend or a wife. He hasn’t any ill-intentions with women only difficulty in discernment whether God requires him to live sanctity with a family and i.e with women and children or sanctity as a priest, with entire family of God.

What is my friend’s problem really? He is afraid. He is afraid whether he would be happy responding to the call of God, whether he can take a leap of faith, whether he can plunge into the water without knowing if it’s cold. When he pictures himself with a girlfriend, he pictures security and self-assuredness. He is assured of love.

But living in obedience to the will of God is much more than being assured let alone the danger of our own understanding and limitations of assuredness. It is about what is right. How can he ever know if he will be happy? All he can do it trust in God that He will take care of him. Somewhere deep inside he fails to trust God. There is a lacking of faith.

We are all afraid though. My friend shouldn’t be singled out though his problems are more tumultuous in proportions. We are all afraid of not being happy in life. Hence we choose things that fit our ‘idea’ of assuredness of happiness. In doing this, we take refuge in our own limited understanding of scheme of things.

Often we know some things are more right than others or nobler or more righteous. But this world has so skewed our standards of defining happiness that we are afraid of doing now what our hearts are inclined to. When we choose things that fit the ‘understanding of peace’ that this world has to offer, the assuredness, we often abandon the idea that God is really the source of all joy because we have gone with what we already have as opposed to choosing what are struggling with.

We are afraid we may not find joy by our choices and it presupposes a lack of faith in the belief of another world. We choose as if this world is all we got and our choices are not changing us according to our real purpose that finds its fulfillment in another world, the world to come. So we go with what is safe than what is courageous. We go with timidity rather than conviction. We go with natural rather than being supernatural.

The choices we make when we are afraid tell us so much of our real faith in God. It tells us where we stand in the scale of humility. As a child cries in the dark and runs towards his mother, our choices show what we think of ourselves, whether we truly believe we know very little, we are very little and completely depend on God and hence affirm our humility or whether when having to make these decision we run in apprehension to assuredness the world has to offer.

A mother loses her son and wonders if she can continue life without him. A man who is afraid of losing a job or quitting one as it is bereft of meaning. Parents have to live with dissenting children or betrayals. We all have something to be afraid of. We can have faith that this world is not where happiness lies so let us not pretend that we can find it if we try unless God wills to give.

We can go against the currents of this world filled with imperfections and an endless pursuit of self-assuredness. Or we can go with life as if we are sailors trying to rescue the sea of life. We may try to hold everything within our clasp but the nature of this world is such, it is going to perish, the sea will slip away from our fingers. Every choice made for worldly things or purposes will inevitably fade away along with its pleasures, comforts and fancies. But if one makes a choice contingent on faith, the hope that one day knowledge will replace this faith and with trust that is moved with love, these will remain¹

1 Corinthians 13

The nature of Asceticism

Yesterday, my friend wanted a tool to do some work. He could do work without the tool but with it, life would be really simplified. He was making a call to me and I was in the Gymnasium. Later on, when I reached home, I told him, “you knew where the tool was, you could have just picked it up. He only smiled and said, ‘It is alright. I did fine without it”

I realized later his real philosophy. Often we get all we want by a simple request or a difficult one. We are averse to bothering ourselves but will go out of our ways to make that last desperate phone call to get what we want. Why inconvenience ourselves, is our reasoning.

But somewhere deep inside just a plain ‘it will be more convenient with the shampoo, with the bike ride, with the pen, with the envelope, with a new phone” is another mindset, a fear active-how can I do without it?

Whether finding out there is little water left to take a bath or there is not much rice left for two to eat, there is always this gnawing fear ‘can I survive this bath without enough water? Can this rice be enough? Should we make some calls or set out to buy more rice? Deep inside the frantic calls or always getting what you want, is a view of being unable to trust God that we would be alright if we choose to do without them. Sure, we feel relieved when we make a call or ask a friend or roommate to go out of their way or use their service and consequently only thank God for working through them. But this is the paradox of asceticism.

The mortal searches the ends of the earth driven by fear and is filled with gratitude after his ends have been met. The ascetic is filled with peace first, for he believes God takes care of all and he needn’t tear himself if he has to do without enough bread or without the AC working and he will survive. He searches God because he is alright if he is deprived of many a things. if he can only receive peace from God instead. The mortal man searches all the ends to receive what he desired if only he can drive away his worry.

One seeks peace; the other seeks to banish worry. One wishes to know what it is to do without things and fulfilling all desires and to only cling to God. The other dreads a day that he would have to do without these things and his desires and clings to anyone or anything that could get him his heart’s desire. One realizes that things bring peace but things are of this world and the peace they bring is also of this world only to vanish away until another thing grips his heart. So he rather have the peace that has God as its source in practicing poverty in order that he can embrace whatever is the reality of his being. The other is harrowed by not having enough and it presupposes a difficulty in trusting God that all will be fine or that we can survive it without great tumult in our soul.

If only we first cling to God in the definitive moment of making a choice whether to do without it or get what we desire that now seems like a spiritual warfare of loyalty to things eternal or things worldly. Of course, our desire to always get what we want and its consequent fulfillment establishes that in this spiritual warfare of choice, choosing whether we can trust God and drive out the fear, mostly our loyalties go with the things of this world. That is why our peace is also momentary. It flees.

This is also the paradox of peace in everyday difficulties. When we drive out the fear because we trust God and take a leap of faith, we are at peace. The fear will be lesser every next time. But there will be a next time and a faith to show. it will keep coming. When we think that all our heart desires should be granted which presupposes a fear that ‘life cannot go on without it’. It is subject to the nature of solutions your friend or any other has to offer like a little water instead of a lot or cold instead of hot. When you still don’t get what you prefer(say in this case more water or hot water respectively), the worry is not perfectly quelled and the sadness remains. We are still vulnerable to sadness. The worry is banished but the worry increases every next time it comes. There will be a next time. Our faith will be measured. It will keep coming too.