There is a movie published and promoted by the USCCB regarding vocations entitled "Fishers of Men." In a line, a priest claims that "all young people have a desire to do something remarkable." There is truth to that, people, especially young people, have a desire to be remembered for something spectacular. But in our quest for the remarkable, are we forgetting the routine?
Coming back from my semester in Austria, I watched "Toy Story 3" and, to be honest, I got choked up during some of it. There is something about growing older, when the daily becomes more and more routine, that we begin to depreciate the value of the daily. The movie illustrates this perfectly. As Andy grows older and moves on with his life, he loses connection with those daily things that once brought him so much joy. Age, it would seem, brings wisdom for life, but loses appreciation of it.
When we were younger, B and I would always play sports against each other. He, being the older and more athletically inclined of us two, would normally win. Sometimes, with the help of Big Paul, I'd win one and I'd feel like the king of the world, and B would taste sweet humility. He's nearing 25 now, and I'm getting ready to graduate college. Sports are gone for us. Every now and then there will be a flicker, as there was when he and I teamed up on the frisbee field just before my surgery, of a time when he and I played sports as brothers do, and to be honest, I miss those days.
Big Paul, for as long as I can remember, has taken Fridays off from work. This usually meant he went in on Saturday mornings for a few hours, but during those Summer months, Fridays were for the three of us. We would go to AstroWorld, ride the rides, hang out in the water park, and just have fun. During school, he'd bring us McDonald's or Burger King for lunch, and in elementary school, that was awesome. And at the end of the day, instead of having to ride the school bus home, Big Paul picked us up. And the first thing he'd usually do, was give us a hug, lean in with that itchy beard and mustache of his, give us a kiss and tell us he loved us. But then age kicked in, and we get embarrassed by these things. We don't want our friends to see these interactions, for fear of being ridiculed. Our reputation began to overshadow our appreciation.
Back in my younger years, about 15 years and 150 pounds ago, I would sit in my mom's lap on her rocking chair and she'd just hold me and rock as she watched TV. See, if I did that today, I'd crush her, I blame her mashed potatoes. She gave B and I nicknames, and if someone knew that nickname, it meant we could trust them. Mom also almost always had a hand in our Little League teams, making pennants, bringing snacks, taking us out to dinner after games, and always being at our games. Her love, which is always poured out to us, seemed to take on a connotation of weakness as years were added to my age. Being a "Momma's Boy" isn't the way one wants to go through high school.
Age does these things to us. The world we live in makes us dead to life. We become more involved in the world, yet we stop truly living in it. By the grace of God, games of catch with Big Paul are replaced with having a beer with him. Mom no longer makes my Little League pennant, but she always tells me she loves me in sign language as I go through airport security. Playing sports with B, has transcended to watching sports with him, appreciating the skill of others and remembering those days of old.
The old gives way to the new. New routine things replace the old, the key is, to relish those moments. The more we begin to understand how the ordinary is truly extraordinary, then we begin to realize that those remarkable moments we long for, happen everyday. Our faith life is much the same. You see, we all desire to be saints, yet we forget that by simply living in the state of grace, we are saints. The little acts of charity that we engage in are bringing about our sanctification, but we'd rather do what we want and be accepted by "normal" standards. But you see, it's the little things, the day to day things that make us saints. It's the little things we must appreciate and cherish, because in reality, they are the remarkable things.
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