Pep Talk
theophilus September 24th, 2008
I was in a meeting today with one of the most optimistic and positive thinking people I know. And he was downright pessimistic. “i’ve been busy watching the economy melt down,” he said to me. I’ve seen this effect often in the past few weeks (sometimes even when I’m looking in the mirror).
Why the pessimism? Why the downtrodden and anxiety-ridden faces? Why the angst?
In today’s Liturgy of the Hours, Morning Prayer gives us Psalm 36 and these verses -
“Your love, Lord, reaches to heaven; your truth to the skies. Your justice is like God’s mountain, your judgments like the deep.
To both man and beast you give protection. O Lord, how precious is your love. My God, the sons of men find refuge in the shelter of your wings.
They feast on the riches of your house; they drink from the stream of your delight. In you is the source of life and in your light we see light.”
This verse is what I love about King David. He was attacked by his enemies, mutinied against by his own son, chastised by God for his immoral acts, and faced trials beyond our comprehension – yet he never lost his hope and faith in God.
If you are anxious, if you are pessimistic, if you are unsure about the current state of our world, nation, community, then ponder these words again – “In you is the source of life and in your light we see light.”
The Lord is the source of our life. In his light, we see light.
If the Lord truly is the source of our life and if we truly see light in his light, then there is no room for anxiety in our psyche. There is no room for pessimism in our day.
We must do what we do best as Christians and as Americans. We must take hold of the Holy Spirit, stand up straight, buckle tight our chinstraps, and figure out what WE are going to do to change events around. This is no time to be beaten down. There is no room in our lives to be anything less than what God expects us to be.
Our future depends on us. It depends on you, me, our next door neighbors, the folks in the next pew over at Mass. Our future depends on us trusting God and sanctifying our lives each and every day so that we execute God’s will here on earth.
Our future depends on our willingness to live every moment of our day in union with Christ, and remembering that Christ was a man of action.
