Category: Behold Vancouver

We become like the things we spend the most time with.

At the beginning of this year, I made a goal for myself to stop reading journalism with shallow or narrow perspectives. I didn’t like the way it was forming me to think and I wanted to be more proactive about the things I let into my mind. I canceled my news subscription and signed up for a print magazine. I don’t agree with everything this magazine publishes but I like the way it makes me think.

I’ve had a habit for a little while now of checking their top stories each day and reading them. Over time, I’ve noticed that the more I read their articles, the more I start to embrace their way of thinking. Their view of the world, culture, and social issues has impacted how I consider and evaluate issues in my own life and I appreciate the way it’s deepened my ability to think critically.

We become like the things we spend the most time with.

This reality was something that the Hebrew educational system in Jesus’ time seemed to take very seriously. An ancient Hebrew proverb says something to the effect of “may you be covered in the dust of your Rabbi.” The image here evokes someone who follows so closely behind their teacher that the dust from his feet is kicked up onto them and covers them. This was the educational system Jesus chose to invite His followers into, one where the dust from His feet would cover them as they followed Him ever more closely.

This image of discipleship has been top of mind for me over the last few years as I’ve considered the things that I allow to shape and form me. I’ve been led to ask myself the difficult question: “is there anything or anyone I allow to ‘disciple me’ more than Jesus does?” If I’m honest, there is one thing that competes most successfully for my attention.

The global daily average for time spent on screens is 6 hours, 58 minutes. Statistics such as this one are often presented in an alarming way. I don’t believe this is always warranted – it’s a fact of life that in our digital age, we will spend much time working, communicating, and recreating through digital devices. At the same time, I fear that many Christians who hope to seriously follow Jesus, have not given enough thought to how these digital devices are forming and shaping them. In other words, do I ever consider what kind of person my technology is making me into?

Here are some of the questions I have used over the last few years to evaluate the impact technology is having on my life, as well as a practice recommended by my spiritual director that has been instrumental in helping me make room for Jesus to be the one who forms me first.

We are told to honor our mother and father…but what about our grandparents? Well they get a special shout-out today, in the readings, and in our lives. Preached on a mission at St. John the Baptist Church in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on March 11, 2015.

© 2024 Busted Halo^®, All rights reserved.

I stepped through the door of the newborn intensive care unit (NICU) trembling. When I found my daughter’s son, Allen Joseph, I froze. It was the first time I had ever seen him. I’d never expected a moment like this, his premature, tiny body swaddled in a blanket and connected to machines all around him. As I placed my finger on his cheek, tears streamed down my face. Welcome to the world, Allen Joseph.

That’s when it happened. My heart stretched and grew a whole new chamber. From the very first moment I saw him, I loved every single ounce of my first grandson. And I knew I would never be the same.

Today we have four grandsons, and we have dreams for each one: Allen, Sam, Matthew, and Michael. Our deepest desire is that they each will lead great lives. We want them to be happy. We pray each will find life in Jesus and his Church.

God has great dreams for each child. And he calls grandparents to help our grandchildren achieve them. God has given us this new vocation, the life of a grandparent.

Here are five simple ways to play a significant role in shaping your grandchild’s life and faith:

1. Love lavishly

Children value and follow those they trust and love. If you want to help shape your grandchild’s life, they will have to trust you first. To trust you, they will first need to experience your love.

This love is experienced most of all in time spent being fully present with your grandchild. Hug your grandson. Tell your granddaughter you love her every time you talk to or see her. Let your home be a place of refuge and security. Send cards or gifts. Make video calls. Text messages of love. Visit as often as you can. Play together. Listen attentively to everything they say.

Your undivided attention shows children that they matter and are loved, and secure love lays the foundation for faith.  

2. Pray passionately

Just imagine what your family would look like if you made it your one goal to pray each day for their faith and their lives. Every family needs a prayer champion. Imagine the confidence your grandson or granddaughter will feel throughout their life by simply knowing that their grandparent prays for them each day by name.

3. Dream deeply

Dreams are powerful, and each of us has them. Kids dream naturally. In those dreams, they find their purpose for life and their passions for living.

How do you help your grandchild to dream? Ask questions. Ask them about what they want to be, what they hope for, or what makes them excited.

Your grandparents, aunts and uncles, and older loved ones have a lifetime of wisdom to share. Why not carve out some time to sit down and ask them about it?

We’ve put together this list of questions that you can print out and jot down their answers about their childhood, favourite things, and life lessons. And don’t feel like you need to stick to the handout — the questions can serve as conversation starters. Your loved ones will likely have more to share than we could even think up!

Download the worksheet by clicking the link below:

Download Worksheet

©2024 Grotto Network

On which sin are we reflecting today?  Envy.  A young married woman gave me permission to share how she’s struggling so much with not being able to have children yet.  Every time a friend gets pregnant, or someone talks about the beauty of children, her heart sinks.  Why can’t she have children of her own?  Why won’t God the Father give her something good, that we’re made to have?  When some friends try to console her by saying, “God’s calling you to be a spiritual mother,” that does nothing for her whatsoever.

Her pain is real and normal.  Let’s acknowledge the pain that many of us feel when we want something good and don’t receive it: wanting to get married, be healthy, have financial security.  But then there’s the sin of envy we feel when we see others have what we desire and we’re not happy for them.

We can understand the experience of the older brother in the Gospel.  He’s in the field working, and, while approaching the house, hears the celebration.  A slave tells him that his younger brother, who is depicted in the parable as truly an awful person, is receiving the celebration.  The older brother then tells his father, “Listen!  For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends.  But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!” (Lk 15:29-30).

The experience of perceived injustice is painful.  It would be one thing if the younger brother had received the same treatment as he did, but the younger brother receives more!

Here’s the first step in overcoming envy: Speak your pain.  Never insult God, but do say exactly how you feel.  The Father expects us to speak and listens to it.  

The second step is to ask Him questions: “Father, why do You give good things to those who don’t deserve them?  Why don’t You give basic good things to me?  Why can’t I receive them?”  Once we get it all out, then we’re ready to hear what He says.

The Gospel says that “his father came out and began to plead with him” (15:28).  This father is actually not unfair; he cares about both his children equally.  That’s why he humbles himself as a father and goes out to meet his elder son.  And his words reveal his heart: “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours” (15:31).  The word ‘Son,’ and of course, ‘daughter,’ reveals God’s love for us.

One of the defining struggles of our generation is to balance the way technology occupies our attention and desire with our calling to live intentionally and boldly. Digital technology certainly enriches our lives, but we all know that restless, distracted feeling it can leave us with, too.

Cal Newport’s most recent book, Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World, offers a practical and convincing solution to those of us who feel enslaved by the dizzying swarm of our technological “conveniences.” Newport, a professor at Georgetown and a New York Times best-selling author, understands that what’s needed is not merely a list of helpful tips or theorized critiques regarding our relationship with digital technology, but an entirely new approach to living.

Such an approach, according to Newport, is summed up by the phrase “digital minimalism,” which he describes as a “philosophy of technology use in which you focus your online time on a small number of carefully selected and optimized activities that strongly support things you value, and then happily miss out on everything else.”

The key word here is “happily” — Newport isn’t proposing a way of life concerned with superficial outcomes like efficiency or utility, but rather one with greater happiness and fruitful relationships.

What I appreciate most about Newport’s insights (besides the fact that they are well-researched) is that he takes very seriously the issue of our addiction to technology. To be clear, Newport is no Luddite — he’s a computer science professor, after all — so he doesn’t fault the latest technologies in and of themselves, but rather their unintentional and aimless use. For Newport, a haphazard and unreflective relationship with the latest technologies ultimately hinders a well-lived life.

Here’s his main thesis: Our lives are cluttered with technologies that offer us little benefit in exchange for their cost. For example, it’s easy to justify maintaining platforms like LinkedIn or Twitter because of the benefit of possibly connecting to others who can introduce us to new opportunities. And while that can indeed be a benefit, if it comes at the cost of spending 20 hours a week on those platforms, then we need to reconsider the actual value of that benefit.

In other words, we need to be doing a cost-benefit analysis of the technologies we use and not overlook the hidden value of our time — something that we all have in limited supply. Such costs can come in the form of weakened relationships with loved ones, feelings of restlessness, and countless hours of lost time.

Newport also highlights that we tend not to think about how we use a given technology — only whether we should use it or not.

Throughout history, people have asked the question, what makes us human? Philosophers, scientists, and theologians have all tackled this question in different ways, and I won’t claim to have a new answer. But I have found that looking at humanity through the lens of technology — and the future we’re building towards with it — offers me new insights into the answer to that question.  

In its simplest form, a human is a person as distinguished from an animal or (in science fiction) an alien. However, being human is much more complicated than that. We are rational beings capable of understanding and making decisions, we have curiosity about the world around us and we have a wide variety of emotions that affect both of the former. In a spiritual sense, we are beings that live for one another when fully cooperating with the Lord through our free will. He did not want to make slaves or clones but instead, those who are in His likeness. Due to this, we are meant to be creators and not solely consumers of the things around us. 

The rise of technology

In the last two decades, technology has been a significant part of people’s lives. From the increase in household use of the World Wide Web to the unveiling of the iPhone in 2007, the world has been increasing its use of technology in daily life. Facebook changed the way we share information with friends and family, initiating the start of social media. 

Today, AI tools are capable of writing papers, creating realistic images, imitating people’s voices, and much more. Robot vacuums clean our houses for us. “Alexa” turns on our lights, sets reminders for us, and changes the temperature in the room with a simple voice command. We have increased people’s ability to talk with those on the other side of the world as well as enabled clearer communication for those who are nonverbal through keyboard or eye-scanning communication devices. 

Along with these benefits of advanced technology, there have also been drawbacks. Technology has pushed society towards more consumerism. Not only do we consume media through our phones and televisions, but we are also bombarded by advertisements in our social media feeds, encouraging us to buy more using an algorithm that pushes ads individually suited to our tastes and habits. 

Technology shapes our lives

Since the rise of social media and the widespread use of the internet, scientists have been interested in the effect of technology on the brains of both young and old individuals. One study found that most adults use the internet daily, and nearly one out of four report being online most of the time.

Maura’s Story

Around a dozen girls, sporting the reliable Catholic school plaid, sat in a classroom tucked away in a side hallway on the third floor of an all-girls high school. During the fall of 2006 and into 2007, the room was filled with raucous, back-and-forth conversations every time the class met. We talked about the genocide in Darfur, homelessness in our city of Boston, and the death penalty. Tough topics, but this was senior year theology at my high school: a yearlong class in social justice.

We read the work of Catholics who dedicate their lives to social justice work, watched Frontline documentaries, and studied the seven themes of Catholic Social Teaching until they were basically second nature. When we weren’t in our classroom chairs, there was a community service requirement to fulfill, because the mission of the sisters who founded our school, the Sisters of St. Joseph, is to “love the dear neighbor without distinction.”

We didn’t always have the same ideas about how to help or even who to help. One classmate sold T-shirts and donated the proceeds to a nonprofit. Another volunteered at a local food pantry. I helped out at a theatre camp focused on building self-esteem in preteen girls. But whatever we did, it all came back to the idea that every life has inherent value and potential.

I’ve been Catholic since my baptism in November 1988, but attempting to live out what I learned during senior year high school theology is why I’m Catholic today.

For me, the heart of the Catholic Church and Jesus’ message, is reaching out and helping others. Different messages and priorities might seem louder or more prominent, depending on who is talking, but my lived experience of being Catholic is one that aligns with the image of a welcoming Jesus — a man who sought out people who were different from him, who helped people who were otherwise overlooked.

There have been times when I’ve been embarrassed to be Catholic, especially with all that continues to come to light with the clergy abuse crisis. Sometimes, it feels like my experience of Catholicism might not exist anymore, and it definitely isn’t the one that gets attention. I’ve worried that people might assume the worst of me when they hear the worst of my Church. But then I remember those conversations in that third-floor classroom, and the group of women who went out into the world to bring justice to others, each in their own way. So I resolve to be that vision of Catholicism, to be representative of the Church at its best, not its worst.

One of my favorite church songs is called “The Servant Song,” and it includes these lyrics: “We are pilgrims on the journey, we are travellers on the road.

Research suggests that, on average, we make well more than 200 decisions every day about what we eat and drink. And yet, most people are aware of making only 15 to 20 daily nutrition-related decisions. These findings could easily be extrapolated to other areas of decision-making throughout a typical day. Not only do many of our choices lack intentionality, but often we aren’t even aware we’re making decisions at all.

We humans are an adaptive bunch. Arguably, there are thousands of micro-decisions to be made each day, and it would be overwhelming to deliberate over each one. (Chidi from The Good Place, anyone?) Part of the problem is that our commercialized culture presents us with a dizzying array of choices about things that don’t really matter, as author Thomas Merton famously diagnosed one day while shopping for toothpaste after spending the previous months “off the grid.”

The trick is to identify which decisions are worth weighing carefully and which aren’t. It might help to relearn the art of asking what might be termed “foundational questions.” Foundational questions come packaged in the rawest, most basic language and demand an answer not just from the information in our heads but from the very fabric of how we understand the mysteries of life.

Asking foundational questions is built into the very DNA of toddlers and college students, but somewhere along the way we mistakenly “outgrow” the habit. During our young professional years, many of us are busy developing the expertise and specialization necessary to analyze profit margins, decipher CT scans, or diffuse temper tantrums. Incidentally, the young professional years — when there is the least amount of mental and emotional space for asking foundational questions — are when many of us begin making for ourselves what might equally be called foundational decisions that shape the course of our lives and the type of people we’re becoming: deciding what neighborhood we live in, what kind of work we will do, and what and how much we consume.

For more than two millennia, folks in the Church have been asking foundational questions about life in this beautiful, broken, and messy world in light of three beliefs central to the Catholic Christian faith: 1) God lovingly created a good world; 2) the goodness of creation has been damaged by sin; and 3) God became human and invites us to participate in His saving work here and now toward our final good in the life to come.

Guided by these three tenets, people of faith and goodwill throughout the Church’s history have accumulated questions, time-tested good ideas, and real-life examples in building up what is known as the Catholic social tradition, or CST.