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We all want to be loved. I firmly believe there is no greater desire…no greater need…in a human being. I believe the need to be loved is even stronger than self-preservation…the need to survive. And I believe it is for that reason that we have evolved into such a sexual culture. Because we need to be loved so deeply, we can be easily manipulated by sex. Sexual images, sexual messages, from commercials to toys, sex is all around us.  And it’s clear from all the language we use around sex. We want to be wanted, to be desired…to be lusted after. Cheap Trick had it right, “I want you to want me.” We interpret passionate, lustful desire as self-worth.  It validates us…if only briefly.  The need for love is so strong, that we easily ignore or look past or are completely blind to the fact that this desiring, this wanting, this lusting really just makes us objects to be exploited or used. We are not truly desired…not truly wanted. If we were, then the other person, would want us not for what we can give them or do for them (i.e. make them feel good…make them feel wanted).  They would want to say or do whatever is best for us…regardless of the benefit, or the cost, to them. I dare say most of the sexual intimacy that happens in our culture today is not about the kind of love we really want. Its a Band-Aid…a quick fix…a welcomed balm.  It lures us all one way or another.  When you have a hole in you needing to be filled, you welcome the spoonful of water…even though the parched confines of your heart will evaporate it before it even reaches bottom. The truth is…and it only makes sense…that no person can fill this need to be loved…and neither can anything else. The need is too great, the selflessness that is needed is too difficult to be sustained forever…at least by us.  As Pascal so beautifully captured:

“What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there once was in man a true happiness of which now remain to him only the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent the help he does not obtain in things present. But these are all inadequate, because the infinite abyss can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object, that is to say, only by God Himself.”  ~Blaise Pascal, Pensees

The reality is that we are already loved…we are already desired more than we could ever want and more than we could ever imagine…certainly more than any human being could desire us or want us or love us. But of course that takes Faith to believe….because the paradox is that until we see it…until we accept it…we likely won’t feel it.

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Sin sometimes feels like gravity. When I find myself confronted by the aftermath of another selfish outburst, like I did today, and I’m beyond frustrated that yet again I did exactly what I said I wouldn’t do…sin sometimes feels inevitable. It sometimes feels like sin has won. It has its hooks in me and there is nothing I can do to escape it…just like gravity. It’s always there…and I am always subject to it. It seems like this inescapable force that keeps pulling back into old ways, bad habits, or just lazy, selfish behavior. And when things are really bad, when I feel I am in this cycle of bad decisions, sin can truly feel hopeless. No matter what I do, how determined I am, or how hard I work to be different…I keep falling back down. Sometimes I think…why bother?…what’s the point?

Recently I finished a story on Audible (www.audible.com…what they label an Audible Original) called, “The Man Who Knew the Way to the Moon”. As the title hints, the story is about the monumental role one particular, largely unknown, man played in the success of the Apollo 11 mission. But what jumped out at me, at least in the wake of me having screwed up yet again, was the discussion of a perennial challenge faced by all space missions–achieving escape velocity.

Escape velocity is the speed at which an object must travel to break free of a planet or moon’s gravitational force. It’s the speed need to break free from what feels like an inevitability to most of us…gravity. To put this in some kind of context, the speed needed to break free from Earth’s gravity is over 25,000 miles per hour. That kind of speed requires a lot of energy. And that’s why for most of us, gravity feels inevitable. At best, we flirt with escape. With the aid of machines like airplanes or hang gliders we can spend extended time off the ground. And individually, with some momentum and a good jump, we can enjoy may a fraction of a second of self-propelled freedom from the earth’s pull. But in the end, gravity wins. What goes up, has to come down.

Maybe because of my frame of mind at the time, but the connection between the pull of sin and the problem of overcoming Earth’s gravity hit me like a 50 foot neon sign in the middle of the desert. So I read a little bit more about escape velocity. What I learned is that escaping earth’s gravity really comes down to two things: how much you are carrying with you (size and payload) and how much energy (fuel) you have. The more stuff you are trying to take with you into space (and thus the bigger the rocket or spaceship), the more resistance there is and the more energy it requires. This is why one of the constant initiatives within any space program is the development of lighter, less cumbersome space vehicles and the simultaneous developing of more efficient and longer lasting fuel sources. We need to make attaining escape velocity easier. I need to make escaping sin’s “gravity” easier too.

One key step is carry less stuff with me. I know a bunch of Christian authors, as well as many spiritual writers in other belief systems, have written about this. I think it boils down to both some materially and spiritually practices. Materially, I need to not be too attached to stuff…to the things of this world. So often our frustrations and selfishness revolve around stuff we claim ownership of…things that are ours such as our time, our money, our plans, etc. When something imposes on them or threatens to take them away, I get defensive…protective…selfish. The solution is, as I once heard someone prescribe it, to hold things with an open hand rather than with a clenched fist. This is figurative of course, but the idea is that we should be thankful for…and enjoy…what God provides, but also be ready and willing to let Him take something away whenever He deems it best for us.

Spiritually, I need to travel liter by not carrying guilt and past mistakes with me. When I feel guilty…when I feel inadequate…when I feel like a failure…its at these moments that I tend to be most defensive…most self-protective…most selfish. I don’t want others to remind me of how flawed am…or how much I’ve messed up. And so long as I feel unworthy and unloved, I am not going to be able to aspire to more…to aspire to be better. The guilt and shame ways me down. Thankfully, as a Catholic, the Sacrament of Reconciliation provides a very tangible way to reclaim an awareness of God’s love for me, not to mention a practical way to leave all my mistakes in the past. But I can also lighten my load simply by getting on my knees and asking God to forgive me and asking Him to take away the guilt and shame. It’s easier to escape when the chains aren’t holding you down.

Secondly, even when I’m less encumbered by material things or the guilt of past mistakes, I still need fuel. The lighted spacecraft in the world won’t escape the Earth’s gravity unless something propels it upward. What I need is transformative energy, and I think I’ve pretty much established that I am not able to generate that kind of energy on my own. I need God. I need His strength…his energy. I need Him to change me…to propel me. an for me, I think the biggest change that implies is that I need to be in a place to receive it. I need to be in prayer every day. I need to be reading Scripture. I need to be looking expectantly for His guidance in my life….from friends….from family…from strangers, and from circumstances. There is no question about whether He has enough power. The issue is whether I am ready to receive it. Am I on the launchpad…am I ready to let him propel me into His orbit. There are lots of ways to get here, but they all require my being deliberate…and being focused on my relationship with Him. He needs to be a priority in my life.

So…while I may not be a rocket scientist…nor a saint at this point…the bottom line seems to be that if I truly want to escape the pull of sin in my life, I need to let go of “stuff”, engage with God a bit more, and let Him propel me. Otherwise I don’t think my efforts to change have any chance of getting off the ground.

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I know it is a bit cliché to reboot a blog on January 1. All the hackneyed exhortations to “start fresh” or “start over”, the seemingly hollow promises of the new year being a “clean slate”…they all seem to carry in them a bit of pessimism that undercuts a goal right from the start. And I have to admit, I don’t like playing into a cliché. I feel foolish or stupid, though truthfully that is mostly because I fear other people will judge it to be foolish or stupid.

Then there is the fear of failure itself. Sure you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take, but if you didn’t take the shot, you can still cling to the belief that you would have made it if you did take it. However, if you actually do take the shot and you miss it…well…there’s no hiding. the consequences are there for all to see. And that’s always a worry when we declare a goal, map out a plan, or set out on a different course…what if we don’t make it? What if we don’t reach our goal? Failing would seem to prove once and for all that our goals are out of reach. The hope of actually making a change or making things better or making a difference would be shattered. Or maybe even worse, what if we do reach the goal? If we succeed there are no more excuses, no more “what’s ifs” to hide behind. What if we succeed and no one cares? What if our success and the changes we make or the things we have created don’t matter to anyone else? What if instead of fanfare we hear crickets?

One way or another, fears like these and thinking like this has limited me throughout my life. Worrying about what others think has sadly driven many decisions, and indecisions, over the years.

Nonetheless, fears, cliche’s, and stories of half-hearted attempts at change can’t erase the truth. We may choose to avoid the truth (out of fear), but we can’t deny it’s veracity.

Each day, whether the first of the month or the 13th, is a new day. Nothing is pre-determined, nothing is robotically compelled within us. We get to choose. Sure the past may not be erased and all our mistakes may not be forgotten, but we still get a new chance each morning to make different choices…better choices. From the simpliest of decisions, like getting out of bed, to the more challenging, such as how we greet the person who undermined us in the meeting yesterday…we get to decide what we do, what we say, and even what we think.

The reality is God has given each of us great power. He has given us the dignity of causation…of agency. We can make choices and our choices have consequences…for good or evil. And while at times this free will can feel more like a curse than a blessing, it is nonetheless ours to bear. There is no getting around it and no escaping it. Even abandoning ourselves to some external authority and blindly following someone else’s orders is still a choice…and it is a choice for which we are accountable. As the now overused Uncle Ben quote (from Spiderman) extolls, “with great power, comes great responsibility.”

And so for me that responsibility…that gift…that God-given charge…is to live courageously. Not necessarily without fear, but not in subservience to it. It means to live deliberately…to own my choices. It means no excuses for what I haven’t done or what I haven’t attempted, but also no excuses for my failures. My free will means that my life is defined by my choices. No… I can’t control fires or floods, accidents or attacks, firings or market crashes…but I can control my response. I can control what I do with these circumstances…what I do in these situations. I determine what it I I bring into this world. I decide on my contribution. Learning to do this is my resolution.

Each day…each moment is a new beginning. Regardless of the choice yesterday or a second ago, I have a new choice to make right now. The past is set, but this moment forward is unwritten. And in that sense it is a clean slate…it is a fresh start. And with no moment beyond this one guaranteed, the question is…what will I do with this moment? What will you do with yours?

So here it is. Blog #1 of 2020. Who knows if I’ll be successful? Who knows if this will make a difference? But either way…I’ve made a choice to begin again.