I read my friend Jen Fitz's story of being invited into deeper relationship with God, and it's perfect for today, when the Gospel is about Christ calling the apostles to something more than they are doing.
Here's the rub for all of us, whether we have a story we can share on the spot or not, God is always calling us deeper in, that's what all of life is, an invitation to something bigger, something more, to love more, to serve more, to share the gifts we have more. The problem with being fallen, is we put the emphasis on the having rather than the giving, on the knowing things rather than people, and on doing stuff --being productive, rather than engaging people where they are, as they are.
I can write pretty words, but can I live a beautiful life. Words are much easier. They're like jokes. It's easy to write humor. Take life. Exaggerate it here, shrink it there, reverse it, twist it like taffy and add a touch of something unexpected and voila, joke. Real life is like not knowing how to drive stick shift. You may know the rules of the road. You may know how to drive automatic. You may even be a good driver with acute spacial skills and fast reflexes. However, if you don't know when to switch where your foot is, or what gear to shift, you will spend a lot of time fixing your mistakes.
Failure at living the words is where most of us are. We can fish all night and catch nothing. What's more, we may have holes in our nets --which might be why we're not catching fish at all. It might be, we aren't doing what we're supposed to, because we've always done what we've always done.
Yesterday, I posted a poster on Facebook about being more pro-life, not less. A friend and she is a friend, tried to find common ground, to say that she is someone who cares for the dignity of the poor, for the immigrant, for people, but feels we ought to have this freedom because the child infringes on the freedom of the mother disproportiately and the laws allow it and each individual must decide what they can bear. But for the unborn, she is pro-life. There, she wants to help the mother, but allows for if the mother does not want to be a mother. She cares deeply about all of this humanity, probably more and better than most, probably better than me. I believe that the dignity of a person is from conception to natural death. The common ground is everywhere except with the unborn.
I'd been helping with a conference we created over five months called a Good Discourse. Here was my chance to put to work what I'd learned. So I tried. Well, I didn't quite hit the mark. Her words, "Not even close."
I sat frustrated with myself, but decided I would not respond, not because I feared response (not entirely anyway), but because I thought it important to sit with her words, "Not even close." My brain woke up the next morning having crafted an argument to "win." But I didn't want to win, I wanted something better, something more, something better than that. Another friend in the meantime had attempted to continue the conversation, but again the point was raised, we've been at this for fifty years, and we're still here.
No. We've been at this a lot longer than that. We've been at this since the fall. We will always have things about which we disagree, on a fundamental level until we are knit together in Christ. (Heaven).
The problem for all of us the living is, we're called to start the life of Heaven --union with Christ, here, and if we know Christ, then the obligation is greater.
The question raised in today's Gospel is, will we drop the nets we hold full of holes that don't catch any fish? We've been at this all our lives and caught nothing (both ways). Are we more interested in a friendship with someone, with really loving that person, or with holding on to all that is familiar.
Do I want the friend? Yes. I'd like the friend. Do I also want no one to ever want to do what is done to children in utero? Yes. I can work towards the later, by words, by charity, by service, to make it possible to thrive, but there is only this one person who is this person and I'm reminded of Dorthy Day's hard true beautiful saying, "We only love God as much as we love someone else the least." and I recognized the sin of sloth, of not seeking the remedy spiritually, of not wanting to have to.
At that same moment, a text came through my phone. My cousin died over night. And I was reminded, no time is guaranteed. The time to drop nets and follow is always now.
Dropping the net means sacrifice, more than symbollic, more than just words. The answer is, we can always do more, we can always love more, and we must trust and know God will make up what is lacking. So I'm asking God to fill in the cracks, to bind us together like bricks, Christ is the mortar that makes us something other than mere shaped rocks, that makes us something stronger that can house and protect and keep the harm out and the warmth in.
Today I give a talk, and I'm no longer ready, or I'm less ready than I was, because it's about humor and how hit helps heal even the hardest moments. Marc's getting everyone ready for mass. We're going. We're stopping what we're doing and dropping the nets.
