Wednesday, April 20, 2011

The new atheism

On Monday evening Mike and I were listening to a Holy week retreat on EWTN. Paublo Straub (he is wonderful!) was giving the talk and during part of it he was talking about atheism. He explained how the word comes from Greek roots and means 'turning away from God' (a=against, theo=God). In the traditional understanding of atheism, a person denies that God exists. He was proposing that the 'new atheism' is a person freely accepting the fact that God exists, but having the attitude of pursuing one's own will and ignoring God's will. Basically, "I'm going to do it my way and I don't really care, God, what your will is".

This makes a great deal of sense to me as I look around the world and think about my own life. Pride is the greatest sin - and, of course, pride is selfishness. Father Strabo went on to explain Eve's fall in the Garden and how we experience this sin of pride in our daily lives. We want what we want with the result of ignoring God and, in turn, whether consciously or not, we try to make ourselves gods. How easy it is to go through life without prayer, reflection, meditation, time set aside to spend with our Creator. How easy it is to live in my own world, to not think about other people's feelings, perspectives, struggles or joys they are having. It is a constant battle and requires constant awareness to seek God's will and submit; the Christian life demands perseverance in laying down my own life so that I may be a empty vessel for the Lord to use. No one said the Christian life is easy.

At the Adoration chapel, I was thinking about my next question - how do I know and seek God's will. After all, I am only human and I do have desires, I do have ambitions, I do have emotions. How do I know the difference between my own will and whether I am truly seeking God's will? Obviously this is not a new question to humanity!

-prayer Constantly praying for grace to seek God's will. Making it a habit and training my intellect to consistently give my will over to the Lord. This is what Jesus did in the Garden and it is in the prayer The Our Father. This is basic, but I am finding there is a whole new depth and many many many layers of meaning to it.
- thinking and meditating on stories Thankfully, I have had a life surrounded by many strong Christians and hearing their stories of faith and how God has blessed them gives me great hope of following God's will. I like to think we are creative as human beings, but God is creativity and he can do whatever he wants! Any plan I may come up with for myself is an anthill compared to the glories God has in store for us and how he wants that story to unfold. There is no need for me to make my own plans when his are far better than I could ever imagine or anticipate.
- be willing to accept suffering I find the saints the greatest inspirations in this area. They had incredible hardships, but they joined their crosses to our Lord's and the example they have become for humanity over the centuries is a testament to how God raised them up to greatness. I am sure they have the closest seats in the house to our Lord in heaven.
- patience This is a particularly hard one for me, I am not a patient person! Usually I want results, I want to make things happen and that ends up in me forcing an issue to doing things my own way. I need to wait for the Lord to unravel his will for me, listen and do my best to have a willing heart to follow

How will I know if I am following God's will? Well, a lot of the time, I probably won't. But I keep close to my heart something a read awhile ago about discernment. God told St. Francis Assisi to build his Church. Francis says, "Of course, Lord!" So he goes and starts literally gathering rocks and bricks to build a church. God said, "No, no, no, no. I need you to build my Church"; eventually, Francis figured out what the Lord meant which was to serve the people and preach truth. When we do our best to seek God's will and take action doing whatever it is we think we should do, God will slowly guild us, nudge us in this direction, take our hand and point us in this other direction. His grace is sufficient, and somehow it works out.

The new atheism - doing our will and not God's - abounds everywhere in our world, it probably is the most natural trap for us to fall into given our human nature. This week of Holy week, thankfully, provides a special time to reflect on how Jesus listened to the will of his Father. That sacrifice he made for us has become our way to salvation. Lord, continue to conform my will during this Easter season.

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