Pleasure

There is no real sense in which you are "owed" any pleasure, great or small, and it is a very dangerous line of thinking to believe (or even entertain the thought) that you are.  Also, it is very common.  Much in modern life causes agony, and a lot of conventional wisdom would have us believe that if something bad happens to us, we must drown ourselves in pleasures to distract/overcome that thing.  We all know that doesn't work.

Still, maybe we cling to the thought that, if there is a scoresheet of pains and pleasures, if we experience a great pain in our life, we ought to have a little pleasure here and there--maybe even a big pleasure, maybe even something that we reorient our lives to get.  This thought is illusory.  In fact, true happiness is based on living our lives on the basis of the good and the real--and not on the basis of what brings us pleasure.

The thing to do when we experience a sorrow that overclouds our life is to stay on course.  Stay steady and trust in a Mercy that provides for you way more than your (largely futile) search for this or that pleasure will yield.  Open yourself to what suffering can teach, because realizing that living a good life will sometimes naturally (and not as a result of mistakes or sin on your part but just because you are trying to be good and seek the good) cause you to suffer can really make you think.  Is pleasure really what life is about when it passes away and your soul does not?

Can't Wait

My perpetual condition is like a kid who starts counting down to Christmas in October (which is, in fact, what I did as a child).  I just can't wait!  Today I told a four-year-old, "You should find something else to do besides sit and wait for the melty beads, because if you just sit there and watch you make the other kids feel uncomfortable and it just makes the waiting seem longer and you get impatient."  Despite not quite being able to pronounce the word "impatient," the kid got the point.  Only later--now--do I realize that what I was trying to teach this child is something I myself need to learn.  I must wait.  Whether I like it or not, things will not be ready right when I want them, the light won't turn green any faster if I tap my foot, and sitting and staring and hoping for something to be ready faster only makes others uncomfortable.

Trads please . . .

My dear fellow traditional Mass-goers, I love you, but please: can we stop driving people away from the Mass we love?  In what universe does it make sense to go around condemning other Catholics as modernist instead of reaching out to them in love?  And there is no need for us to be the modesty police . . . police your eyes, sure, but let people figure it out from the way you dress that they should also dress respectfully. 

Also, let's not close off dialogue by being, frankly, impolite in the way we express opinions.  When I was in college and had conversations with my friends, we would just go ahead and assert something and wait for someone else to argue the point and then use our superior knowledge to prove them wrong.  This may have been appropriate for undergraduates at a liberal arts college, but in most normal settings it is considered rude: you ask questions and listen to another person rather than telling him what he should think.  You don't know everything.  He may know even less than you, sure, but firstly, how do you know how much he does or doesn't know if you don't listen to him?  Secondly, would he be at all likely to listen to what you have to say if you deliver it with (what is perceived as) a superior attitude?

Finally, don't be misogynist.  I like to think this problem is more rare, but I won't fool myself into thinking it doesn't exist.