A Shot at Love, Rock of Love and Finding True Love

You know, I’m a reality tv junkie. I’m not always proud of this considering what trash is on these shows sometimes. Not only are people crude and violent but they are usually sexually active and the producers of the shows don’t do a whole lot to censor them either. As a grown adult, I feel that I have had good examples of love in my life to distinguish between true Love and this MTV style love. But then again, I cannot completely deny that I am impervious to media either. Sometimes I think about all the kids who grow up in families and don’t know what real love is. I worry that this is the example that they get. That they will grow up thinking that a Shot of Love with Tila Tequilla is really the way to determine who you love and who loves you back.

For those of you who don’t know the premise of the show, Tila is this bi-sexual girl who gets 15 girls and 15 guys in one house and they compete doing different contests to find out which one is Tila’s true love. The ironic thing is that most of these shows (Flavor of Love, Rock of Love & Shot at Love) all are in their 2nd and 3rd seasons. The first “love” didn’t work out.

When I turned off my television set thinking about how skewed this view of love really was – I kept thinking about a very popular verse from 1 Corinthians (13:4-8).

Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, (love) is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.

So many phrases in this simple few verses contradict these television shows. The whole of these shows is centered around one person. This one person – a celebrity – is looking out for their one true love. It’s funny because the celebrity is never once questioned about whether or not they are really just seeking their own interest (increased fame? just sex? popularity?) or the interest of the others

I think too many times people think of love as a feeling. As a “connection.” That’s what these people keep saying on these shows, “We had a strong connection right from the beginning.” And as the show progresses that connection vocabulary gets replaced with love or it doesn’t. I suppose a lot of us judge possibility for love this way. We meet someone and we’re either attracted to them or not. But how can a talent contest where people dress in skimpy little outfits really determine if the other person can help you be a better person… Can be patient and kind to you… How does a dance contest show you that someone is not seeking their own interests? These contest win more one-on-one time with the celebrity – but what do they do at their alone time? Make out? How does this get to know the person beyond physicality?

If you read Proverbs 31, it talks about how to find a wife. Now taking into account that this was written quite some time ago, some of the prerequisites for finding a good wife are a little out of date – for example being able to ply a spindle or being able to to turn wool and flax into clothing. But the point is that finding someone who is a good wife – or a true love – means that she’s got her stuff together. She’s a hard worker and brings good to her lover (v.12), loves and cares for the poor (v. 20), dignified and respected among others around her (v. 25).

Think about it this way: Isn’t it a bit disconcerting that there must be multiple seasons of a search for “true love”? Don’t these people realize that true love is supposed to last? Isn’t the definition of insanity doing the same thing and expecting different results?

Think about it. How do you define love? Is it more Corinthians style, or MTV style?

Charm is deceptive and beauty fleeting; the woman who loves the LORD is to be praised. (Proverbs 31:30)

Love your enemies because Love conquers all

I hate hate.  It outrages me.  Prejudice jokes. Lumping a group of people together and making an overall judgement.  The remarks and disrespect towards Latino people.  I hate it.  Nothing infuriates me more than ignorance about another person or people that turns into hate and disrespect for one another.  There has been so much anger and hate towards people who are different from each other in my line of sight lately.  It’s really been overwhelming and somewhat stressful to be honest.  By nature I am a peacemaker.  I make it my job to see to it that everyone is happy.  It’s quite a burden seeing how it’s pretty rare that everyone is always happy.  And if they are it’s because peacemakers like me are bending themselves in half trying to soften the blow for each party.

Tonight during my meditation, I thought about all the hate in the world. All the anger and ill will towards others that there is.  (Really uplifting, right?)  I was looking at a replica of the Pieta. I thought about how ingrained this conflict is – so ingrained in our world that even my cats’ natural inclination is to fight one another.  But upon looking at the Pieta while thinking about these things I thought about the One who loved.  I looked at Him lying in his mother’s arms.  The love He had for this hateful world and the love that she had for her son.  I thought about all the hate and all the pain and suffering it had caused… but if you think about the power of love… Hate really isn’t stronger.  Sure we see it more often, maybe.  A lot of times we’re more drawn to it. Why else would newspapers have the saying “If it bleeds, it leads”?  But what act of hate has been remembered for 2,000 years?
Lord, heal me of the hate that I hold in my own heart towards those who have hurt me.  Help me to love.

Dying to Live

Tonight in YA Faith Formation, it floored me that no one in my group had ever heard of the concept that in order to rise with Christ, you must die with Christ. As in, they knew the “take up your cross” thing, but the mention of *death* was something totally new to them. Not only have I “gotten” that concept for quite a long time myself, but we also put on a retreat all about this concept of the Paschal Mystery last spring for the teens.

I guess sometimes I forget that even though something has been drilled into my brain by Life Teen, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the rest of the world has been exposed to it.

But Thomas Merton is a great intro to the idea of putting selfishness aside and figuratively dying to yourself and your own wants and desires for the betterment of others.

I love his image of it: that of progressively ridding yourself of layers of selfishness, like snakeskin, until all you have left is pure love.

 I feel like that sometimes: I feel like I get to a certain maturity level in my faith, then I need to shed my skin and enter a new phase, a new level, of spirituality.

This growing process also comes with a slight problem, which I encounter often: Once I become this new person with a new skin… It’s hard to remember what the old skin looked like, hard to remember what it felt like to live in it. Which wouldn’t be all that bad, except for the fact that in peer and youth ministry, relatability is one of the most important things. And yet, at the same time, I’m still learning to live in the new skin, so that’s a little awkward as well.

Lord, help me shed the old and grow into my new skin, and teach others how to join me in doing the same. Help me teach them how to die to themselves for the sake of others, and become better at modeling that behavior!

Hold Me Like Holy Water

And she says take me away
then take me farther
Surround me now
And hold, hold, hold me like holy water
Holy water
~ Big and Rich “Holy Water”

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the PERFECT metaphor for how women want to be treated.

Think about it.

If you want to hold water, how do you have to hold your hands? You have to cup them together, very carefully. You can’t close your fists tight because the water would fall out, but you also can’t just splay out your fingers, either. It’s a balance.

Water is also pure. Innocent. Simple.

Plus, this is not just any water, this is holy water. Sacred, precious, and important.

It also has a purpose that you have to respect: You sprinkle holy water on things to bless them. You wouldn’t drink the water, or use it to wash something, you would make sure that the water fulfills its potential/purpose.

So I’m not sure if Big & Rich knew just how perfect their metaphor is, but maybe they did.

Whether they realize the lyrical geniuses they are or not, I leave you with this:

Proverbs 31:10-11:
When one finds a worthy wife, her value is far beyond pearls. Her husband, entrusting his heart to her, has an unfailing prize.

Lover of my soul

Happy Valentine’s Day/Black Hearts’ Day/Singles’ Awareness Day…

I’m not going to lie, I was pretty depressed yesterday.
It’s hard not to be when you don’t have a “Valentine.”

And it’s not that I’m jealous of those who aren’t single, and it’s not even that I think people are rubbing it in.

It’s that I know that the person meant to be my significant other has a lot of standards to hit! So it’s a little frustrating that so many men just don’t… cut it.

But then, that’s me trying to do MY will instead of GOD’S will again…

It’s actually quite amazing, because after being depressed all day, right after my PSR class last night, I just got this total inspiration to be productive and be on top of things and just be… happy. So I conquered my desk at work, plowing through a covering of literally at least 2 inches of paper EVERYWHERE. Granted, it took me four hours to do so, and I left the church at a little before midnight, but it felt GREAT.

Then I had the energy to clean a whole lot at the apartment this morning too!

And I was thinking about this sudden change of mood, and you know what? It’s a prayer answered. I asked Jesus to be with me… and then He just was.

I have this prayer card posted on my cabinet at work — we made them for the Young Adults this summer, and it’s just so great. It has JPII on one side, and this quote on the back, from his address at World Youth Day 2000 (I WAS THERE!). It just sums up exactly what I was feeling and what just happened.

Funny… almost makes you believe in God…

It is Jesus in fact that you seek when you dream of happiness, he is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; he is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is he who provokes you with that thirst for fulness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is he who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is he who reads in your hearts your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle. It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be grounded down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.

Okay, God, I hear you.