Baxter loves to sleep curled in a ball. He walks around his bed for a few moments, plops down, settles into place, and then rolls his body so that his head and tail meet with his face nestled in his soft and warm stomach. In this pose, it is hard to figure out what exactly he is. He looks more like a furry pillow than a cat. When Baxter is set in this self-enclosed circle, he is dead to the world. Lights and sounds go unnoticed; I can come and go around him without any reaction. At times, Baxter is so removed from life in this disposition that I have to watch him carefully for a few seconds to make sure his diaphragm is moving. He’s not dead, but he is dead to the world.
Wouldn’t we all like to learn this cat trick? The times we are in sometimes seem so confusing, upsetting, threatening and contentious that we are at a loss for what to do. How do we fix the Middle East, the environment, economic inequality, racial divides, cultural divisions? How do we stop terrorism and nuclear armaments? Whom do we trust to lead us through these dilemmas? What do we teach our children about the right way to live in this world? Where is God in all this?
No wonder we would like to curl in a ball and escape it all, just sleep away until we can awaken to a new world with all the problems solved. But for us humans, and especially for us Catholic Christians, it doesn’t work that way.
This messy, unclear and uncertain world we live in is the place where we must work out our salvation. Trying to escape the picture doesn’t give us a better way. It simply gets us nowhere, living in a dream-land from which we must eventually awaken and face the situation we left when we fell asleep. Like Baxter when he awakens from his deep sleep, we need to lift our heads, stand and stretch, and get moving again. Our church offers some tried and true advice on how to do this.
Start with prayer. Pray for God’s presence and power to be felt as we tackle the dilemmas of 2016. Next, learn the Church’s teachings on the principles that guide our way towards the best solutions. The document, “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship”, and other explanations of Catholic social teachings are examples of these. Finally, have a conversation—not an argument--with others trying to be faithful disciples as they grapple with the issues of our day. Listen to their concerns; ask questions about why they hold the positions they do; think about the agreements and differences that surface between us and what they tell us about each other, our problems and God’s ways in our midst.
Baxter can afford to curl in a ball and sleep his life away in peace. We don’t have that luxury. We need to be about God’s work in the uncertain times and perplexing situations we face. As daunting as this task may be, we cannot abandon it, for we are His disciples and the instruments of His grace. So wake up and don’t be afraid. “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
