Satisfied

A post by Jennifer on the blog "Et tu?" inspired me to think about our never-ending search for satisfaction and the purpose of the season of Lent. She writes:

"I'd forgotten about this until now, but up until a few years ago, almost every time something exciting or good happened I would feel a tinge of depression. No matter how great or exciting the situation, for some reason I could never quite feel fully happy about it. Just as my happiness would be about to reach a crescendo, something would make it fall flat, like when a singer just barely misses the high note. I didn't generally struggle with depression in this time in my life; it was just that for some odd reason whenever something particularly good occurred, it would trigger a vague sensation of despair somewhere deep down inside."

When I was at Harvard, I was in a Christian a cappella group called Under Construction, and as part of our semesterly concerts, we always put on a little skit, divided up into four scenes, that was intended to provoke thought about some aspect of the Christian faith. In the spring of my junior year, we wanted to explore the thought experiment, What would it be like if you got everything you wanted?

The skit centered around a person named Kevin (played, conveniently, by me) who dreamed of being a boxing champion. It followed him through his training to his gold medal victory in the Olympics and subsequent celebrity. In the final scene, Kevin, who has now turned pro, wins a bout to become the undisputed heavyweight boxing champion of the world. After all the celebration, Kevin sits alone in the middle of the stage, looking at the ground. His coach enters, beaming with pride.

"Congratulations, Kid," he says. "You did it. You're the undisputed heavyweight boxing champion of the world. You're the best there ever was. You worked hard -- you should be proud of yourself. You've got everything you ever dreamed of."

Kevin, who hasn't looked up through all this, turns his head and asks, quietly, "So . . . what do I do next, Coach?" Fade to black.

This seems to be the position we always end up in whenever we finally get whatever it is that we are sure will finally make us happy, content, fulfilled, satisfied. Whether it's a good education, a good job, a good family, wealth, fame, prestige, security -- it always leaves us wondering, Is this really all there is? Why do these things never satisfy us like we hope they will? Is there anything that can perfectly fulfill these deepest desires of our hearts?

The things of this world cannot finally satisfy us because we are not made for this world. God created us, and only God can satisfy us. As St. Augustine writes in his Confessions, addressing God, "You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you."

Only in God can we find the fulfillment of all our desires. And that is part of what Lent is all about. It's a time to remember that all our attempts to find fulfillment apart from God are ultimately futile, a time to turn to God and to turn away from all the things that keep us from Him and His perfect, infinite, intimate love. Lent is a time to really take to heart Jesus' words from the Sermon on the Mount:

"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will be your heart also." (Matthew 6:19-21)

Shameless self-promotion (sort of)

If you have any interest in good a cappella music, you should check out this CD by my old a cappella group, Harvard's Under Construction (the virtues of which I extolled in my last post). I had a large hand in recording and producing this CD, so I can (and will) vouch for its quality. Just go here and click on "media" if you're curious. You can even listen to a sample of my solo on the first track.

The tale continues . . .

So, to pick up where I left off in my last post (which, incidentally, was also my first post), as I started out at Harvard in the fall of 2003 I was looking forward to deepening my Christian faith in a decidedly non-Catholic context. When my parents dropped me off at school, they visited the Harvard Catholic Student Center and reported back to me that it was very nice. They also gave me several fliers they had picked up about the Catholic Student Association, which I quickly made a point of losing.

I decided to try out Christian Impact (Harvard's chapter of Campus Crusade for Christ) basically because they were the first Christian group I saw at the Freshman Activities Fair and because they hosted a barbecue, which seemed promising. After a few Bible studies and a large group meeting, however, I didn't really feel like I fit in there, and so I quietly stopped attending and slipped into a semester-long period of total spiritual apathy. I didn't go to church, I didn't really pray, and I sometimes had to actually speak or write the words "I AM A CHRISTIAN" just to try to reassure myself.

I am firmly convinced that God came to my rescue at the beginning of my second semester of college by leading me to audition for Under Construction, Harvard's Christian a cappella group, which really ended up defining my college career. In UC, I found a loving and dynamic group of incredibly faithful, thoughtful, intelligent Christians for whom the call to follow Christ was a constant reality. My time in UC strengthened my faith and my desire to spend my life serving God more than any other single experience in my life thus far.

Through the members of UC, I was also introduced to the Harvard-Radcliffe Christian Fellowship and Highrock Church, both of which helped me to grow in love and knowledge of God.

Between UC, HRCF, and Highrock, I was fairly well entrenched in the Evangelical Protestant Christian culture and mindset. I attended Catholic Mass only very rarely, and I wouldn't have identified myself as really a Catholic if you had asked me. And yet I never totally disbelieved many of the Catholic teachings that Protestants traditionally reject. With respect to Christ's Real Presence in the Eucharist, for instance, I could say to myself, Why couldn't He be there if He wanted to be? Though I still didn't come close to fully understanding many Catholic teachings, I never rejected them outright.

Nor, for some reason, was I ever able to formally renounce my Catholicism. While some of my friends were becoming members of Highrock, a church that I loved, something inside of me always held me back, telling me not to give up my Catholic identity so easily. Though at the time this little voice seemed to be nothing but a nuisance, today I am deeply grateful that it was there.

It wasn't until the spring of my senior year that I felt any serious tug back towards the Catholic Church. I don't remember precisely when it started, but God tugged hard! All of a sudden, I felt strongly convicted that the Catholic Church was where I belonged. I started going to Mass on weekday mornings, stopping in St. Paul's Catholic Church in the afternoons to pray, listening to Catholic radio, and reading Catholic books. During Lent I made my first confession since the eighth grade. I was back in full force, as they say.

I suppose this is still just the beginning of my story. Ever since God pulled me firmly back into the Catholic Church, I've had a strong desire to help others to experience the incredible depths of truth and beauty that I've found here. Perhaps that's what this blog is about. I'm quite sure that's what my life is about, and it's just getting started.