"I've Got My Philosophy"

Endomondo Running Workout: Nicole was out running 16.02 miles in 2h:17m:09s using Endomondo.

I re-read the Catholic Mass readings for today.  I was actually quite happy with what I got out of church today.  Not just the sermon, but the readings as well.  The Old Testament, New Testament, and Gospel readings had one theme in common: Forgiveness.  But I especially enjoyed the New Testament passage, Phil. 3:8-14.

All too often, Catholics are chastised by priests about not going to confession, not taking things seriously enough, and so obviously not following the catechism of our Church.  Frankly, I've sometimes left Mass feeling worse about myself rather than spiritually nurtured.  That's not always the case, but when it is, I just feel awful about myself.

Christians will tell you we need evil in the world because of the need for free will.  While this may be true, today I learned something even more moving.  We need to have evil, recognize when we've done something wrong, and then pick ourselves up and move forward in life by both learning from our mistakes and not dwelling on the past.  Most importantly, when we commit evil acts, the fact that we turn to Jesus for comfort reminds us of how important He is to us.  It really makes sense.  How can you move forward in a human or spiritual manner if you beat yourself up over your sins for months or even years?  God doesn't want us to beat ourselves up - He wants us to turn to Him for comfort and forgiveness.  In turn, we need to stop whatever that bad thing is we're doing.  We'll inevitably stumble because we're human, and that's okay... but it's just so important that we have God as our rock to help us move closer to him.

Today I ran 16 miles.  Those who know me well understand that I do not run with music for safety reasons.  People often wonder how I can tolerate it or what I can possibly be thinking about to pass the time.  There are all sorts of things I think about during my runs!  Today, I had a few lines from a Ben Folds Five song going through my head to the point where it actually started to irritate me.  The song is Philosophy and the lines were as follows: "I see that there is evil, and I know that there is good, and the in-betweens I never understood."  It became sort of a mantra after 8 miles, and I wondered why it was just stuck there. 

For the last half of my run, I tied the lines from this tune into what I'd learned in Mass today.  There are so many "in-betweens" in life.  There sure the heck is a lot of evil.  There is evil that I have tried to wrap my brain around for years now and just make sense of it all.  There have been things I've done in life that were wrong, and I often look back with both anxiety and disappointment in myself.  I ask myself, "Why did I do that?" or "How could I have been so stupid?"

The thing is, God does not want us to try to figure out all the evil in the world.  Evil will always exist. Good will always exist.  The "in-betweens" - those too.  When we fail to do what God expects of us, acknowledge it, stop the sinful behavior, but don't dwell.  Move forward towards the prize, Jesus Christ.