Till the Cows Come Home

WORK, PRAY, REWARD

Follow your bliss. There is some logic to it. There is some truth to it. But, it’s not the key to everything. Is there any one key to everything? Can life be reduced down to the one thing that matters more than anything else? If it can, it’s not easy or obvious. Life can be and tends to be very complex. There’s a lot of different things to think about and do. Sometimes it's hard to keep up with everything that needs to be done and everything that others expect us to do. We go along and do the best we can. We have a tolerance for imperfection and human frailty or we don’t. Better to be tolerant of our own and others faults, or life becomes very unpleasant indeed.

I have tried to do the right thing. I have tried to live rightly. I have tried to be and do good. Our lives are full of narratives, our own and other’s. Some are true and some express our fondest wishes. Some narratives are true for some people, but they won't cut cookies consistently. A narrative that works for one man doesn’t necessarily bear up for all. Your happy ending might be my disappointment.

Poor mortals think in terms of rewards for their actions and efforts. We want and expect to be rewarded for doing the right thing. But, the reality is that you can do the right thing till the cows come home and not be rewarded for it. There are tangible rewards and spiritual rewards. Eternal and temporal. Earthy and heavenly. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly (I Corinthians 15: 48). We should be and do good as is the heavenly, not as is the earthy. We get swept away by compelling narratives about people who were rewarded for doing the right thing. Happy endings. Positive outcomes. Earthy rewards. We forget that the best reason for being good is a heavenly reward. Things don’t always end happily. How do we comport ourselves when things end badly? Do we forsake goodness if we don’t get our earthy reward? Ye seek me . . . because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled. Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life (John 6: 26-27). The standard of goodness is its own reward, which is hard to accept and prove.

We think that if we do x, y, and z, then a, b, and c will happily follow. Sometimes the formula works. How do we comport ourselves when it fails? Do we stop working when our formulas don’t work the way we want them to?






Photograph: Double Trinity with Saint Augustine and Saint Catherine of Siena. Retrieved June 13, 2015, from http://apostolatestjoseph.com/resources/The%20Heaven%20and%20Earth%20Trinities%20with%20Saints%20Augustine%20and%20Catherine%20of%20Sienna%2018th%20Century,%20Peru.jpg