"The man who is filled with the Holy Spirit speaks in different languages. These different languages are different ways of witnessing to Christ, such as humility, poverty, patience and obedience; we speak in those languages when we reveal in ourselves these virtues to others. Actions speak louder than words; let your words teach and your actions speak."
- St. Anthony of Padua, Priest- Office of Readings
If you follow me on Facebook (which if you're reading this you most likely do) then you know we've made a lot of changes to our life lately. This has been raising some questions amongst many of you. Why? What kind of changes? How? Etc. I've touched upon it a bit in the past but I thought I'd dive into it a little more here. This isn't a post about my day to day- but rather the philosophy behind the routine.
So the above quote from St. Anthony (it's his feast day today!-what's up!) hit me this morning while praying the Office (no not the show). I love how he took a moment from the life of the Apostles, from the Bible, and transcended it to something more- something bigger. I felt that happened with me as I was reading it. As he spoke of 4 different virtues I saw this description of different languages as something that really fit perfectly into what Amanda and I are trying to do in our lives.
If I had to label my languages I'd say they would be Faith, Family, Friends, Health, Entertainment... hmm, I'm sure there are more but I think I'm going to stick to these. Because these 5 things are what take up most, if not all, of our time.
What struck me most about the quote above was the line "These different languages are different ways of witnessing to Christ." I love it! It's evangelization... if you've been following any Catholic culture stuff online it's been really popular lately. Jim Gaffigin has been the popular example of it lately. People living out their faith in such a way that it becomes attractive to those around them.
Not to pop anyone's bubble but this isn't anything new! This is why religious communities grow. This is why FOCUS, The Fellowship Of Catholic University Students, is so successful.
And this is what Amanda and I want to do.
If it was easy there would really be no need for it. It takes works and a lot of effort. The biggest challenge I feel is realizing to live a solid virtuous life it's not trying to balance all of these things, but rather to order them rightly.
What's the difference? Aren't they the same? Don't they produce the same result?
Well no- or this would be a pretty pointless post.
When my mentality was one of balance rather than order I found myself running to a lot of extremes. Not only just running to extremes but I also found myself burning out pretty quickly. It's tough enough to achieve balance in your life- it's a whole other problem to try and sustain balance!
Let me give an example: On one side you have family and health. On the other you have faith and friends. You try to give a little of your time to each and hope all are satisfied with what you can give them. In the end you're either spending all of your time with one or the other and neglecting the rest. In the example I've given your friends end up wondering why they never see you or your family (and possibly your friends too) think you've become some kind of religious zealot!
That's the key to balance. If you don't get it just right everything gets thrown off. That's in the nature of balance.
When you begin to live with a mindset of order... well, everything just kind of falls into order. :) Kidding, let me explain.
When you order things in your life you put the most important things at the top. However it's not so much that the things at the top get all of your time and efforts and everything at the bottom are left with the scraps. It's more like everything at the top feeds everything below. It all flows down. Or if you like to think of it as a pyramid then everything at the bottom is the foundation for everything that will be built above it.
I like to think of it as a flow though.
Here's my order:
1. God
2. Family
3. Friends
4. Health
5. Education (you'll see later that I just added this one in) ;)
6.. Entertainment
(Looking up at that something seems missing. It's not exactly right- but the basics are there and I think it'll get my point across)
First and foremost, no matter what I may be missing, is God. Without Him I can do nothing. When I use to try & balance everything I would struggle with what God was calling me to in my life. Should I be a priest? He's the most important thing in my life... I should be a priest. Maybe I'm supposed to be a missionary for life? How could I ever get married? See the imbalance there?
What I failed to realize was that God is not only the most important Person in my life... but He wants and should be apart of EVERY aspect of my life.
If balance is needed in life then it is God who is going to provide it for me. Why? How? Because HE has his hand on everything I do in my life. (Or at least should have a hand on everything I do.)
If I start to give too much attention to something then my relationship with Him allows Him to real me back in.
But not only can He provide some balance but He awakens and pursues things in me I had no idea were there.
The reason this healthy lifestyle is more than just a "health kick" is because He has revealed to us over time that we should honor Him in our bodies. That in order for life to be full we need to be healthy so that we can be free to do whatever He calls us to do.
So yeah, I spend a lot of time with God. An ideal day finds me waking up at 4:30 AM and doing a holy hour from 4:45-5:45. After breakfast I send the kids off to play and read the Office of Readings. By 8AM I'm headed up stairs, drawing a name from a bucket (who knows maybe yours) and taking a cold shower. (Not because I'm some kind of masochist- but because I truly believe their is grace in sacrifice and that we are called to unite ourselves with Christ's suffering on the cross and that good can come out of not only sacrifice, but sacrificing goods as well.) 9AM finds us at the church for Mass. There are prayers before meals and bedtime, and as you all probably can tell we mostly listen to Christian music in the car... well mostly just Matt Maher right now thanks to Bob. In an ideal week we say 1 family rosary, a Bible study, Amanda and I physically pray over each other one night a week for either a petition, intention, praise of God, thanksgiving, and/or blessing of God or our spouse and Sunday nights we read a spiritual book and discuss.
That's an ideal day or week... ideal. It's funny- most of the weekly commitments are the ones that go out the door more often than not. Because we haven't formed it into a habit. But the daily ones are also a work in progress. I don't always get up at 4:30 and I don't always get to Mass... and I don't always take a cold shower.
I chalk this one up to an act of God though- after showering one day I broke the cold water knob and we haven't gotten it fixed yet. So, I'm actually forced to take hot showers right now, lol. Oh well. If I pull your name this week you're getting at least 30 seconds of cold water and it's actually lead to me give my Mass offerings up that day for whomever I pulled.
(So yeah- going back to the post the other day... if you ever feel alone or unloved... you're probably being prayed for.)
So that's God! He has to be touching EVERYTHING. And in order to be touching everything He has to be on top and be a BIG part of my life. If not... everything else fails. Or at least my feeble attempts at everything else fails.
Family is next... obviously I think I've shown how God is an integral part of my family. We've got a lot of reminders of Him around our house and most things we do are centered around Him in one form or another. But family is absolutely essential in my life.
With Amanda working full time and me staying home we don't always get to see each other that much... or at least it could be that way. For the most part our weekends are dedicated to each other. If she's home we're usually together. So much so that even when we're visiting or having friends visit- we do it together. We try to bring our friends into our lives to share our life with them not only to spread the joy but also because we love/want to spend time with each other! (it's a novel idea for a married couple I know).
Trips to the park for the kids, family outings to Whole Foods, or adventures to downtown Woodstock are all apart of our normal family routine outside of the house.
Again, I just briefly showed how my 3rd rung, my friends, feed out of my family. For this one I should really just refer you back to one of my first posts on Community. It's vital- and I don't believe you can really raise a family properly without a strong community around you. It's the others that really enforce in your children the strong values that you're trying to instill in them.
But for us friendship means growth and challenges in our personal lives. It means someone outside of each other that we can turn to for advice or just stress release. It's people with similar values who are going to help you work toward becoming a better person for your family because they know you are willing to do the same for them... really, friendship is just a short offshoot of family.
Here's where it gets a little weird concerning the whole order thing. While I have Health and Entertainment 4 & 5 they're really just sub categories of Faith & Family. The same goes for Education (I just realized I didn't put that in there). I guess that would be 5 and Entertainment would be 6- but that's not the point.
The point is we seek to be healthy to both glorify God in our bodies and our relationships, and have the energy to do things that both glorify God and entertain us. We seek entertainment in order to strengthen our family bonds and friendships. Any education we seek is to glorify God and to help improve our family's life. It really all circles around and flows from one to another.
Order is the means... heaven is the goal.
So put things in order and put God at the top. Let God reign! It's amazing how your life can be transformed when you just let go... and let God do all the balancing.
Yeah it takes work and effort on our part. God isn't some magic crystal ball. But He'll give you the grace. He'll see your efforts, and your life can be amazing!
Thanks for taking the time to read (especially this one!- I know it was long- sorry) and God bless,
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