“Yea, my life is hidden in Christ, death no longer rules over me.”
We sang this song often in college. In small praise and worship sessions with our campus ministers. I never understood it and, to be honest, my 21-year-old self felt a slight revulsion to the idea of a hidden life. It took a while, but I’m coming to understand what I was singing all those years ago.
I shared in last week’s episode and newsletter that I had a rough summer. (Thanks to everyone who has shared kind words in response, it means a lot to know I have your support! Oh, and thanks to everyone who has completed the Always Hope survey. If you haven’t yet, please click here. It’s a tremendous help getting your feedback.) Although the summer wasn’t about the pain, it was about finally putting to bed some demons I’ve wrestled with for decades. Namely, the trap that I routinely fell into of expecting peace and happiness to come from success. Lord, show me the errors of my ways! In chasing success in a religious space, I played a dangerous game and mixed a toxic cocktail. The mixture of my faith life and professional success created all sorts of confusion in my soul, with the cancers of haste and jealousy growing from each swig of that bottle.
Since grad school, I’ve had a recurring dream of being chased by a monster that I can’t outrun. It was the same experience each time: the fear of the monster behind me, my legs wouldn’t turn over as fast as I wanted, or some heavy force would weigh me down, and I’d wake up just before the villain caught me. (This is why I never enjoyed Temple Run, lol). For my entire adult life, I’ve always been running. Driven towards some goal. Looking for that place where I can say I’m here, I’ve made it, I’m enough. When I hit the wall this summer, I couldn’t outrun the monster anymore, and it finally got me. I stopped running and let it devour me. I allowed myself to feel all that it brought. I worked through my questions of faith, my sense of failure, accepting the journey that led me here, embracing my life as it is, but above all else, I was finally able to identify that little gremlin driving the bus: haste (aka fear of failure). I’m a problem solver, so it took on the form of virtue. However, it is no virtue, but a devil in disguise: a temptress whispering in my ear, egging me on, never giving me rest.
Scripture often refers to hell as the place where there will be “wailing and grinding of teeth.” I get it. Teeth grinding, or bruxism, is a hallmark of haste. The devil’s number is 666 because it signifies eternal work without the rest. You never get to the 7th day.
Haste loved company and would bring Jealousy along for the ride. I never wished ill on people and genuinely rejoiced in their success. I didn’t want their path nor desired to take something from them. But I was tired and wanted something to click for me. I patiently waited for my turn. I was doing all the right things and felt like God wasn’t keeping his end of the bargain. (It’s this feeling that connects me with all the singles who listen to my show. I know the feeling of wanting something so bad, working so hard for it, and yet still not getting the results you desire.)
It’s weird how the mind works, because as I took the summer to work through all of this, I had another dream that was a slight variation from the earlier iterations. This time, I was running, but the monster caught me while I was still sleeping. I didn’t wake up, and my hand was caught in its mouth. It didn’t kill me! It hurt; I could feel the pain of the teeth pinching my skin, but never breaking through or drawing blood. When I turned to look at what had been chasing me all these years, it was nothing more than a little dog. A small Yorkie. Not even a Doberman Pinscher! Wow, I felt silly. I can take on a Yorkie. I can punt that little guy across a football field if I needed to!
Success and celebrity are a fool's errand. There’s a quote from Jim Carrey that says, “I wish everyone could be rich and famous, so they could see that it doesn’t work.” So, what does work? (I’m a problem solver, remember?)
I dedicated this week’s episode to my dear friend and mentor, Msgr Slade Crawford. He was a giant in my life. The source code for how I live my faith. His life was marked by continual pursuit of God and routine disappointment and failure. Fr Mike Nixon, the homilist at his funeral, said, “Fr Crawford should have been the abbot of a monastery; that level of success is what he deserved.” But Fr. Crawford’s final pastoral assignment before retirement was in Perry, FL. What, you don’t know where Perry is? Exactly. It’s a small town in the Big Bend, one of the few and bizarre Florida coastal towns that doesn’t have a beach. But Crawford embraced it, would refer to it as Perry-dise, and loved the people God brought before him there. He was a man of deep prayer, who knew that his life was hidden (and assured) in Christ; therefore, death, failure, disappointment, no longer ruled over him. Yes, he felt the pain of things not working out the way he hoped, but it was never about success; it was about being faithful to whatever circumstance God has placed you in.
Let’s end with this: Confidence comes from clarity in discernment, a commitment to constant growth, willingness to reiterate, freedom to play, taking the leap of faith, and embracing the spirit of adventure along the way. Mother Theresa said, “If I become a saint, I will be a saint of the darkness.” I’m starting to understand what that means. Embrace the hiddenness of life! Build a firm relationship with Christ through prayer. Focus on what’s before you. Be faithful in the small things. That is what matters. Not how many people listen to your podcast. Not how many subscribers you have on YouTube. While I confess that I still desire for success, I’ve drastically redefined what that means. I’m learning the wiles of haste, embracing the darkness, and not forcing anything to happen that isn’t supposed to. “Sufficient for a day is its own troubles.” Matt 6:34.
Check out this week’s episode to learn how prayer helps you see Heaven on earth.
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And like a good sommelier, a great movie pairing for this week’s newsletter is Good Fortune. The comedic story of a struggling gig worker who gets his life swapped with a rich tech bro. A bit of language, no violence or sex, good enough jokes, and an excellent message about accepting life as it is. (Of course, It’s a Wonderful Life is a gem, too. See my previous episode on that.)
Be good. Bye for now,
Mario
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