My senior year in college, I was in a long-distance relationship. And when I say long distance, I mean REALLY long distance – I was going to school in California, and my girlfriend was going to school in Maine. After pining away throughout the Fall semester and anxiously awaiting her return home, the day she came back, I got dumped. Hard. Out of the blue. I was devastated. Crushed. Forlorn. Lost. You name it – I was low.
I was also cycling competitively at the time, so during that Christmas break, I hatched a brilliant plan. I’d go on a ride from my parents’ house in Los Gatos over to her house in Santa Cruz. Conveniently, I would forget water and food, and so naturally I’d stop by her house looking for nourishment, she’d take pity on me and/or marvel at my athleticism – whichever worked – and I’d win her back. Seemed a fool-proof plan. I was so committed to the plan that I actually didn’t take food or enough water. Problem was, when I “casually” stopped by, no one was home. I had no money. I had already ridden about 40 miles, and I had 40 more to go. As you might imagine, a sport like cycling is one that requires the intake of some food and water on an 80 mile ride. I figured my best plan was to try to ride hard and somehow outrace my hunger and thirst. Didn’t work. Ran out of gas (metaphorically speaking) before reaching the summit. Oh yeah – and it started raining. A lot. And it was cold. Saw an empty bag of chips on the side of the road and I investigated to see if there were some crumbs. No luck. Plus – yuck. Tried to grab an orange rolling down the gutter. No luck again. I was in serious trouble – and this was before the advent of cell phones, so I couldn’t call for help. Eventually, I flagged down a good Samaritan who took pity on me and gave me a ride to the other side of the hill, and I was able somehow to pedal the last mile or two to my parents’ house. I grabbed several handfuls of food and took them with me to the shower, because I was so cold and so hungry that I couldn’t possibly decide which to do first, so I ate in the shower.
So what’s my point? That I was once a rather pathetic, love-sick guy who lacked a sufficient appreciation for germs? True – but not the point I’m going for. The point that I’m making is this – by the end of that ride, I was so lacking in the basic necessities of food, water, and shelter that I couldn’t focus on anything else. I wasn’t thinking about my heartbreak. I wasn’t thinking about school. I wasn’t thinking about my family. I was only focused on getting hydrated, getting fed, and getting warm. Without those basic needs, there’s not much else left for us.
As you know, each year we select a challenge to human dignity upon which to focus for the year. Throughout this year, we’re going to be focused on Economic Justice. While we’ll talk about many different challenges to economic justice over the course of the year, three topics that we’ll focus on will be access to clean water, a place to live, and adequate food. We’ll hear from two speakers in October who have dedicated their lives to providing access to clean water in the developing world. And many of us will have a chance to build filters that will immediately be put to use in Nepal and in other parts of the developing world. During the Winter months, we’ll be continuing our relationship for the third year with Safe Park – an organization that provides a safe place to park, along with some meals and showers, for people who are living in their cars. And During our Lenten Food drive, we’ll hear from Thomas Awiapo from Catholic Relief Services about how small charitable donations made at churches and schools around the world literally saved his life as an impoverished child growing up in Ghana. January will also see our Summit Week, when we’ll have opportunities for you all to explore your interests and passions relative to this topic by choosing from a great array of breakout session options.
The first reading today from Micah is one of my favorites. It lays out for us so clearly what God expects of us. Do justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly with God. We spend a lot of time here talking about acts of Justice. And I think we do quite well in that area. But I think it’s worth noting that when Fr. Pedro Arrupe, former head of the Jesuits worldwide, first exhorted graduates of Jesuit schools to be “men and women for and with others,” he wasn’t just talking about doing service. We should absolutely do that. But he was also talking about fighting against systems of injustice. Unfortunately, there are entirely too many systems of injustice in our world today. Any system that denies the dignity and equality of each and every human being – anything that doesn’t positively affirm that every human being is made in God’s image and deserves our love and respect – those are all systems of injustice. I encourage you to pick something you’re passionate about, and work to effect change in that area. We’re also called to love kindness – even in our pursuit of justice! There are so many ways in which you all do a great job of being kind to one another. You’ve got some adults here on campus who are amazing examples of that. Think of the warm greeting that you get every single day from Fr. Shinney when you enter Mathewson Hall. Or how Mary Van in the kitchen knows your name and greets you with a warm smile as you go through the food line. What if we all were like that? If we brought that kind of warmth and kindness to each of our interactions, we would go a long way towards making this place a reflection of how God’s Kingdom is supposed to look. And, we’ve got to walk humbly with our God. We are awesome at many things here at Bellarmine. But humility is not high on that list. I love that we are proud of this school –I know I am, and I’m glad that so many of you are too. But part of being humble is a recognition that it’s not so much about how GOOD we are – it’s about how LUCKY we are – or, to say it more accurately, how much our lives have been touched by Grace. When a reporter asked Pope Francis very early in his Papacy who he was, his response was, “I’m a sinner. Loved by God.” That’s the essence of grace – realizing that God loves us even though we are sinners. And it’s a great reason why we should be humble. C.S. Lewis once said, “humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.” It’s also central to being a person for and with others – it’s not thinking about how you can get ahead, glorify yourself, have fun at another’s expense – it’s acting in a way that puts the benefit of others before your own.
Today’s Gospel is one that, frankly, most of us don’t want to hear. Imagine the scene – a really good guy asks what he needs to do to get into Heaven. He’s rich and also a good guy, so he’s thinking Jesus is going to say, “just keep doing what you’re doing.” But after telling Jesus he follows all the commandments, Jesus tells him to sell all of his stuff and follow him. At this, we are told, “he went away sad, for he had many possessions.” If I’m being honest, I have to say that in some ways, I totally get that response. Like many of you, I like my stuff. When I travel, I like to get a pair of spiffy new socks to commemorate the site. Do I need more socks? Nope. But I like having them. And I have an impressive number of beige pants in every shade imaginable. How many pairs of khaki pants can one man own, you might ask yourself? More than you would think, and no doubt more than I need.
St. Ignatius talked about this need for possessions as “disordered attachments”. It’s not necessarily the possessions themselves – it’s how we feel about them. Checking your cell phone rather than paying attention to the people you’re with, for example, might be a disordered attachment. It was something Ignatius really struggled with (and yet he still made it to sainthood!). Ignatius said that these disordered attachments were desires for riches, honors, or pride. None of that, he said, led anywhere good. The Brad Pitt character from the movie Fight Club expressed the same idea when he said, “the things you own end up owning you.”
So when we talk about economic justice this year, we’re not just talking about doing good deeds for those who have less than we do – though that is certainly important. But if we are to take a stance of humility and kindness to go along with our desire for justice, then we also need to realize that we have a great deal to learn from the socio-economically disadvantaged. The poor are less likely to suffer from disordered attachments; my heartbreak over my girlfriend in college didn’t seem so terrible when I was freezing cold and had no food in my system; those basic needs were all I could think about. Stripping away all the stuff that we don’t need has a wonderful way of helping us to focus on what truly matters.
I think a healthy perspective also can enable us to use the things we have to serve others better. I really enjoy the whole series of Marvel movies. Over that series, there is a great story arc that follows Tony Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man. In the first Iron Man movie, Stark builds his iron man suit purely for selfish reasons; he’s stuck in a cave and builds it in order to escape and exact revenge. For those of you who have seen the movies, think about how much that perspective changes by the last Avengers movie. And I’ll try to say this without providing too much of a spoiler, but come on – it’s been four months! In the last movie, Iron Man uses that same suit (alright – an updated version of the same suit) completely for the purpose of helping others. Rather than using it to save himself – he uses it at, shall we say, great cost to himself. By the end, his stuff doesn’t consume him any longer, but he is able to use his stuff to serve others.
So – don’t let the stuff you own own you. Do justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly, and let’s make it a great year.
Chris Meyercord '88