"You Can't Measure Up"

Funny thing . . . on the surface, society and God both tell us the same thing:

"You can't possibly measure up."

Society-- through media like television, music, movies, print, and digital-- tells us we can't measure up to its standards.  Through these different outlets, society has set the standard for perfection: the perfect life, perfect family, perfect job, perfect body, etc. Society keeps sending us the message that we aren't good enough. "You're not rich enough, beautiful enough, smart enough, popular enough, etc." Society looks on us with disdain, disapproval, even disgust, and we can get caught up in a restless, ceaseless struggle for unattainable perfection. 

In a way, God says we can't measure up, too-- that is, we can't merit salvation on our own (CCC 2007). We need His grace just to come to faith in Him, and even that faith is a gift we are given freely by a God who looks at us as we are, takes us as we are, and loves us as we are. After all, He created us! This is an incredibly different outcome of what seems to be a similar message on the surface. 

When it comes to my own children and my students, I'm going to do my best to help them learn not to worry about failing to measure up to society's impossible standards. I want my children and students to know that:

• God accepts them, loves them, and died for them, making their salvation possible.  
• Even though they couldn't earn this gift on their own, it's attainable.
• With God there's no need to struggle. No seeking perfection through 10 easy steps found in the latest People Magazine or Facebook post. 

I want my students to know that with God, they don't need to worry about not measuring up because He doesn't look at what they're lacking.  He only sees children He loves so much that He sent His Son to die so that He would not to have to spend eternity without them.

Come to think of it, I could stand to hear that more often myself. How about you?

Photo credit: Sepehr Ehsani via photopin cc

Happy Children

"Parents have the first responsibility for the education of their children. They bear witness to this responsibility first by creating a home where tenderness, forgiveness, respect, fidelity, and disinterested service are the rule. The home is well suited for education in the virtues. This requires an apprenticeship in self-denial, sound judgment, and self-mastery - the preconditions of all true freedom." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2223)

One phrase stands out for me in paragraph 2223 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: "self-denial." 15 minutes of television is all you need to know that there's not a lot of self-denial preached by mainstream society. Seems to me that the commercials might be right-- after all, I know how unhappy I am when I desire a Double-Double from In 'N Out and can't have it. I also think about how happy I would be if I had that Double-Double . . . and some fries . . . animal style.  

In teaching self-denial, does the Church have it wrong here?

Of course not. Like so many things, Church teaching as found in the Catechism, seems backwards only when viewed through the fallen perspective of the world. In reality, my reaching out for that Double-Double brings only temporary, sensory-based happiness, but it damages the true, lasting happiness that comes from being healthy, eating right, maintaining a healthy weight, etc.

Happy Children

I think that's what we really need to distinguish for our children-- the difference between temporary, sensual or sensory-based happiness, and true, lasting happiness, particularly through the kind of education we provide them.  

Please, don't get me wrong-- our senses are gifts from God, and it's okay to enjoy them! However, the Catechism is pointing us toward an education that prepares our children for something much deeper than success or the fulfillment of the material desires of their hearts. In fact, I'd go so far as to propose that if the education we provide as parents and teachers leaves our children bound by their own desires seeking only to satisfy their wants, instead of able to control them through self-denial and self-mastery, we will have failed in teaching our children one of the most important lessons prescribed to us by the Church.

Let's begin teaching self-denial and self-mastery during this Lenten season by setting realistic and virtuous limits on our children's expectations, and by emphasizing charity and generosity before wants and desires. Though successful careers and material things are definitely blessings granted by God, they are not the ultimate purpose of our existence, and they don't bring us the true freedom achieved through the virtue of self-denial.

After all, true happiness is not being bound by the desire for something (and thus frustration when not able to possess it).  True happiness is found in the peace that comes from being able to master these binding, overpowering desires.

Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/seeveeaar/2663730916/