No Sidelines

There are no 'sidelines' in life; no having our cake and eating it too; no free rides; we either are coming into focus or we are going out of focus. This is common knowledge and yet, ... we are often coerced to the 'sidelines' denying the interconnectedness of life - the mimetic nature of living in the image and likeness of God.

Call it relativism,
Call it political-correctness,
Call it what it is, the myth that tries to justify making-no-waves.

In our attempts to posture ourselves straddling-the-fence on all of life's decisions that are ours to make, be they small or large, we allow ourselves to be swept off the playing field, relegated to the 'sidelines' where there is no shortage of whimpering and whining.

Léon Bloy (1846-1917), the French novelist, poet, and Catholic convert had a way of seeing through the fog - the myth of straddling the fence. In her column, "Credible Witnesses" in the Magnificat, Heather King shares an excerpt from Bloy's Pilgrim of the Absolute:

"Every man who begets a free act projects his personality into the infinite... If he begets an impure act, he perhaps darkens thousands of hearts whom he does not know, who are mysteriously linked to him, and who need this man to be pure as a traveler dying of thirst needs the Gospel’s draught of water. A charitable act, an impulse of real pity sings for him the divine praises, from the time of Adam to the end of the ages; it cures the sick, consoles those in despair, calms storms, ransoms prisoners, converts the infidel and protects mankind."

To be awaken: to be fully alive as a person made in His image and likeness is taking up our cross, if you will, seeing the choice of our actions, from what life hands us, as a choice, even mysteriously, shared with thousands of hearts not yet known. This sharing is the joy of being human and it is in living fully THIS life that we are all called to participate.