Waiting on the World To Change

Have you ever looked around? I mean really looked around? Have you ever looked inside yourself? I mean really looked inside yourself? I would venture to think most people really haven't done this because if they did they would not like what they saw. John Paul II said the biggest crisis in the modern world is the lack of an interior life. We have stopped being self-reflective. We have stopped evaluating what our senses take in around us. We have become people who are on autopilot going through day to day life without ever taking time out of our days to reflect on what is really going on inside and around us.

We go to movies and watch television shows without ever evaluating what messages they are giving us. As Christians we basically tell ourselves that as long as there is no nudity and the violence isn't too graphic that it is a perfectly wholesome movie or television show. But is it really? Is there actually anything on T.V. or at the movies that doesn't attack our Christian values or tear down the culture in some subtle way?

We listen to music and don't even pay attention the lyrics. As long as there are no explicit lyrics we tell ourselves they are fine. But are the lyrics painting a false picture of what love or reality is?

We spend more time on facebook socializing than we do in person with people. Are we actually communicating and building relationships this way? We sit and text Suzy the entire time we are having coffee with Johnny. We talk on the phone while we are at the check out line at the grocery store barely even acknowledeging the check out person.

We have our kids enrolled in so many activities and work so much that we are lucky to sit down and have dinner as a family once a week. When we sit down and have conversations with people they mainly consist of gossip and the latest episode of LOST or the OFFICE or what Beyonce is singing about. Rarely are conversations meaningful and life changing.

We have forgotten how to pray, how to relate, how to think and use our reason, and how to engage the culture.

I'm not saying watching movies and listening to music is bad or that facebook is the devil or that cell phones are evil or that we should not talk about LOST or the Office with our friends. But I am saying that we need to evaluate what we take in, oursleves, and how we approach our relationships. We need to take our minds with us when we go places or sit in front of the T.V. Our reason and faith need to be used in conjunction with one another to evaluate the culture and engage it.

We have to look inside ourselves. We have to figure out what the sins are we struggle with. We have to work at building virtue. We may not like what we see if we really evaluate ourselves but that's ok, that is why God gives us grace and mercy. We don't like to do this because this may mean we have to change and give up things in our lives that we enjoy. To be a Christian means to be counter-cultural. How do we do this?

We have to look around and us as well and challenge the world to change. I'm not saying be judgmental. I am saying though to fight against the things in this world that are constantly in oposition from reclaiming a Christian worldview and culture. How do we do this?

I'm not sure how exactly to do all these things. If I had the answers I would already be doing them. I'm by no means perfect. I'm a victim of the culture as well but lately I've been really thinking about this stuff a lot more. I've been driving around in my car without music lately and it has given me a lot more time to be reflective. I'm coming to realize how much I need to change and grow in virute but I'm also coming to realize how unhappy people and our world are. How much we are rationalizing our actions. How much we have completely lost use of our reason. We are fooling ourselves into thinking we are "enlightened" and "free". Society has decided that there is no God simply to justify their own immoral behavior. I would venture to say there there are very few Athiests out there that actually believe there is no God, they actually just tell themeselves that so they can sleep at night.

If we actually used our reason and intellect in its fullest capacity we would come to realize that we need God, we need to change, and we are created for a much higher purpose. We aren't created to be society's drones, but that is what we are becoming. How do we fight it?