Struggle

I think I've said this before, but when I was younger, my greatest fear was feeling pain, especially the pain of losing someone I love.  However, now I realize my greatest fear is just the opposite- being numb.

I'm terribly ashamed to say that oftentimes I try to forget the countless faces of suffering people in the world.  I try to live a "normal" life, one that mostly revolves around myself, where  my biggest complaint is how tongs are a terrible way to serve cheese on taco day in the caf.

Don't get me wrong- there is nothing wrong with enjoying life, but there is something wrong with sleepwalking through it.

I'm afraid of becoming numb, yet I work to numb myself.  I am a contradiction and a hypocrite.  Maybe most of us are.

And then I remember- I remember that the real world is not just this corner that I live and work and play in.  The real world suffers.  Whether it is someone suffering from mental illness twenty feet away from me or someone struggling to survive the day thousands of miles away, this world is full of pain.

One sensation that struck me when I came home from a summer in Haiti is that the suburban America I live in is both beautiful but somehow less real than Haiti.  Everything looks and seems perfect, but there is a lot of candy that coats what's real.  There are a lot of people walking through life asleep.  Most Sundays in the months following the summer, I wished I could scream in church.  I cried after mass on Christmas because it was like watching a comatose, sleepwalking version of what should have been.

I wanted to stand up and shout: HEY!  Can you believe it?!  God became MAN to save a dying world!  The great God who created the universe humbled Himself and became one of us!  A human being-- a hated and persecuted human being, just to be with us for all eternity!

HELLO?!  Anybody let that sink in yet?

But I didn't shout out anything.  I just watched a mostly numb congregation go through the motions of another Christmas service... watching their watches.  Waiting to get home and eat pie and ham and fall asleep.  Numb.  And yet I try most days to become just that.

I remember.  Then I feel helpless.  Then I try to forget.  Repeat.

God- don't let me forget.  Don't let me use my life as novacaine.  Just tell me what to do with what you have shown me.