Tag: frustration

To Be the Face of God

To Be the Face of God

The other day, I gave a test in all of my classes.  In the midst of this, I discovered a student cheating on the test.  As I spoke with the student and some details were revealed, I found that I wasn’t angry with the student.  I simply felt this incredible sadness.

I always want to be able to trust my students.  When something happens that betrays that trust, I find myself a bit frustrated and sad.  I don’t want to doubt what they tell me or question their integrity.  But they are humans and sometimes humans cheat or lie.

During the rest of the day, this incident weighed on my mind.  I was sad and disappointed with this student but also with students in general.  Cheating is something I do not understand.  Perhaps because I enjoyed school and generally like a challenge, but I could never see myself cheating in school.  In middle school and parts of high school, people thought I was semi-ridiculous for how cautiously I guarded my paper during tests or quizzes.  I didn’t want to be the unknowing person from whom others stole their answers.  Some of my students have a very different perspective.

So I began to wonder how God takes in the continually disappointing behaviors of humanity.  It is a love that I cannot comprehend because it is truly a love without condition.  My love is conditional.  I have a great affection for my students, but when confronted with their weaknesses and their imperfections, I struggle with how to move forward.  I know a single action does not define who they are, but it shapes how I perceive them.  How can the Lord look at us in the midst of every sin and love us wholly and entirely?   Continue reading “To Be the Face of God” →

A House Divided

A House Divided

Satan, the father of lies, loves division.

It matters very little what the division is actually over.  In fact, I think the more religious-oriented the division, the more it pleases Satan.  But he will take any dispute, so long as it seeks to divide.

Knock down drag out brawls over the liturgy?  Disputes over the placement of the altar?  Feuding over Lenten fasting?  Frustrations with priests and bishops?  Sides forming over who is more Catholic than the pope?

Satan is delighted.

We spend our time considering what we think is best and we tend to lose sight of the Lord.  I’m not arguing for an “anything goes” mentality.  Far from it, I am encouraging us to focus on what is the most important rather than repeatedly increasing the divisions within humanity.

For the bonds which unite the faithful are mightier than anything dividing them. Hence, let there be unity in what is necessary; freedom in what is unsettled, and charity in any case.

(Gaudium Et Spes)

In The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis portrays Hell as a place of isolation.  The opening pages start in a town that is approaching the evening hours but seems empty of people.  Yet the narrator finds people waiting in line at a bus stop.  As the minutes pass, people leave the line because they keep quarreling with each other about one thing or another.  The town is empty because the inhabitants cannot bear to be in such close proximity to other people with all their flaws and imperfections.  So they keep moving, distancing themselves from others until they find themselves in complete isolation. Continue reading “A House Divided” →

That Time I Went To A Club

That Time I Went To A Club

They thought it would be funny to go into the club.  It was a Saturday evening and we were walking downtown.  As I fished around in my wallet for my ID, I could hear the strong beat of music that poured out past the bouncer, who waited with a flashlight and outstretched hand.  This was a place very clearly out of my element.

We entered the club and I started taking it all in.  I wasn’t really dressed for the place, but I wasn’t entirely a misfit.  I tried to keep my facial expressions neutral as we climbed the steps to the second level.

One.  I started a mental count of former students.  Luckily, I never moved beyond one.

On the second floor, I saw the long bar, people pressed up alongside it four deep.  I really wanted to not look like a fish out of water, but I must have failed because my friends were amused by my expressions.

“Just dance,” they told me, as the music blared across the sea of people. Continue reading “That Time I Went To A Club” →

The Things They Say

The Things They Say

“That was the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen,” a student openly told another after I showed them (what I thought was) a funny video clip.

And we’re back.  School was in its opening week and I already felt as though I was in the thick of it.  Of course, my pride felt a little wounded at such a declaration.  I was quick to think, “That is rather unlikely.  You’ve probably seen far stupider things.”  Another part of me wanted to put her in her place immediately. Continue reading “The Things They Say” →

Love never ends

Love never ends

“Why would the Lord be frustrated with you?  What would that accomplish?” my spiritual director asked me during our last meeting.

While I had spent days being frustrated with myself (and assuming the Lord was, too), I had never looked at it in quite that light.  And in some ways, I didn’t want to.  It was easier to assume that the Lord was throwing up His hands and sadly shaking His head in my direction.

“Why would He be frustrated with you?”

Because it seems like He should be.  I am–why wouldn’t He be? Continue reading “Love never ends” →