Sky High

I am greatly blessed.

I just resumed my study of the life of Pope John Paul II for a little book I’m writing and illustrating. God has given me a really sweet reason to immerse myself in Him through someone who loved Him dearly. In only a few hours of spending my time reading his biography and discourses I feel infected by that love and close to Jesus. Few things are more moving to me that the love of God winning over tragedy.

I have a book called “A Year with John Paul II” and there are meditations for each day taken from the Pope’s writings and Prayers. Today, on a whim I opened it up to August 10 and this section cut me straight through!

“The consumer society in which we live and the fear of an uncertain future drive one to seek immediate gratification for oneself. One becomes, introverted, falling back on one’s small personal happiness, on one’s emotions, in a circle where aroused feeling is incessantly on the look out for new sensations, which quickly fade away, where there is no reference but to self and to one’s pleasures. This is no way to live. This is not the world you want: it would be a world without hope, one that empties man’s life of meaning.” - Discourse to the Youth of Fribourg, Switzerland, June 13, 1983

I tried to find the rest of the discourse online, but couldn’t so I’m no the hunt for the rest. There is a danger, at least for me at the moment, when I am focused on job hunting and working on my personal art to become oh so self-centered! To become more excited about “the next new thing” than God and the people he calls me to serve. Compliments, fame, fads, movies, etc come quick, strike high and then they are gone. But God’s love and the deep connection with neighbor is so much deeper and lasting I pray that even when I am working on my own I am drawn out of myself to something greater. That my heart might expand. And that is what I hope for you too! Whatever your creature comforts may be that they will not become crutches in your life but sweet nectar to add to your daily romance with our Lord and his people!