My new prayer routine was going to be great! In addition to my usual time in the morning before the kids got up I was going to spend a holy half-hour in contemplative silence after supper. What a great way to spend my evening.
Then a kid started practicing piano.
Not a problem! There were plenty of other places in our house. I didn’t need to pray in the family room.
“Dad, I can’t figure out this math problem!”
“Anybody want to play basketball in the driveway?”
“Hey, where’s dad?”
After ten minutes of agitated prayer, the Lord took pity on me and asked the question I needed to hear:
“Do you want to be a monk or the father of your family?”
Embarrassed, I made the sign of the cross and abandoned my pursuit of solitude.
In this series, we’ve set the groundwork for finding peace and now it’s time to start taking external action.
It’s time to face our reality, make any needed changes, and embrace the rest.
I have often failed to find peace because I wasn’t living in reality. Wanting the prayer life of a monk as a husband and father of five children is just one example of a peace-destroying fantasy. I set my heart on something—uninterrupted quiet on a weeknight—that didn’t fit with my vocation. That time is for being present to my family. How can I expect to feel peace when my heart’s desires pull me away from my vocation’s legitimate needs?
There’s one thing to do with desires that are opposed to our vocation: Tie them up, place them on an altar, and slaughter them as a sacrifice. Yeah, that’s dramatic, but going halfway won’t work. A divided heart can’t have peace. I’ve chosen the vocations of husband, father, deacon, and employee. Each has a right to my time. I won’t have peace if I play favorites, focus on some while neglecting others, or chase after things that don’t fit.
You’ve probably met people who fully embrace their vocation and state of life. They’re the people who love what they do and who they are. They seem more alive than the rest of us. They seem actualized in a way that’s appealing and rare.
These people have committed to who and where they are. They aren’t wishing things were different or wondering if the grass is greener on the other side of a fence.
Reflect on the places where peace is elusive. What triggers a lack of peace? What did you expect to happen instead? What did you desire or wish for? Are your desires reasonable? If they don’t fit your vocation or state of life, it may be time to put them on the altar and get to work.
Sometimes, our desires are reasonable and things have to change. It’s easy to slide into a false reality—a situation where we act as though two opposed realities can both be true—without realizing it. Peace is impossible in a false reality because our conscience won’t let us rest there. We know that one, or both, of our beliefs aren’t real, and peace can only be found in reality.
Our financial life is vulnerable to a false reality. It’s very possible to live a lavish lifestyle that our income doesn’t support. The mere thought of actually looking at our finances causes a spike of anxiety.
Dysfunctional relationships are another form of a false reality. We naturally want to believe that important people in our lives love, respect, and value us, even if their actions and words don’t prove that they do. It can be tempting to make excuses for the people who hurt us rather than having an honest conversation with them.
Living with a lie is a false reality that devastates our sense of peace. We question the authenticity of everyone who loves us because they don’t know what we’ve done or who we really are. We reject the acceptance of others because we think they’re accepting a fake. We’re terrified of being discovered. Terror and peace cannot coexist in our hearts.
Embracing reality does not mean taking it exactly as it is. If we spend more than we make, we either need to make more or have the humility to simplify our lifestyle. If an important person in our life doesn’t treat us the way they should, we ought to seek a change of behavior or distance from them. If we’re living a lie, we need to get to the sacrament of Reconciliation, stop committing the offense, and let the right people know what they need to know. Our deep, dark secrets don’t need to be posted on social media! But, the people who deserve to know, need to know.
Finding false realities is painfully simple. All you have to do is spend time in prayer asking God to show you what you’re hiding, what you’re avoiding thinking about. This can be extremely difficult and may require counsel from others, but if they’re not addressed they will siphon peace from a soul as sure as gravity silently pins us to the earth.
Spend some time in prayer asking to be shown the places that you need to embrace the reality of your vocations or state in life. Consciously name and surrender the desires that make you resent your God-given reality. Ask for the grace to choose, to embrace, the real life you live, not some fantasy.
Name the false realities that you try to ignore. You don’t have to fix them overnight, but at least admit that they aren’t tenable. They are stealing your peace and they must be faced in an appropriate way and at an appropriate time. Putting this off only prolongs the suffering.
Then a kid started practicing piano.
Not a problem! There were plenty of other places in our house. I didn’t need to pray in the family room.
“Dad, I can’t figure out this math problem!”
“Anybody want to play basketball in the driveway?”
“Hey, where’s dad?”
After ten minutes of agitated prayer, the Lord took pity on me and asked the question I needed to hear:
“Do you want to be a monk or the father of your family?”
Embarrassed, I made the sign of the cross and abandoned my pursuit of solitude.
In this series, we’ve set the groundwork for finding peace and now it’s time to start taking external action.
It’s time to face our reality, make any needed changes, and embrace the rest.
I have often failed to find peace because I wasn’t living in reality. Wanting the prayer life of a monk as a husband and father of five children is just one example of a peace-destroying fantasy. I set my heart on something—uninterrupted quiet on a weeknight—that didn’t fit with my vocation. That time is for being present to my family. How can I expect to feel peace when my heart’s desires pull me away from my vocation’s legitimate needs?
There’s one thing to do with desires that are opposed to our vocation: Tie them up, place them on an altar, and slaughter them as a sacrifice. Yeah, that’s dramatic, but going halfway won’t work. A divided heart can’t have peace. I’ve chosen the vocations of husband, father, deacon, and employee. Each has a right to my time. I won’t have peace if I play favorites, focus on some while neglecting others, or chase after things that don’t fit.
You’ve probably met people who fully embrace their vocation and state of life. They’re the people who love what they do and who they are. They seem more alive than the rest of us. They seem actualized in a way that’s appealing and rare.
These people have committed to who and where they are. They aren’t wishing things were different or wondering if the grass is greener on the other side of a fence.
Reflect on the places where peace is elusive. What triggers a lack of peace? What did you expect to happen instead? What did you desire or wish for? Are your desires reasonable? If they don’t fit your vocation or state of life, it may be time to put them on the altar and get to work.
Sometimes, our desires are reasonable and things have to change. It’s easy to slide into a false reality—a situation where we act as though two opposed realities can both be true—without realizing it. Peace is impossible in a false reality because our conscience won’t let us rest there. We know that one, or both, of our beliefs aren’t real, and peace can only be found in reality.
Our financial life is vulnerable to a false reality. It’s very possible to live a lavish lifestyle that our income doesn’t support. The mere thought of actually looking at our finances causes a spike of anxiety.
Dysfunctional relationships are another form of a false reality. We naturally want to believe that important people in our lives love, respect, and value us, even if their actions and words don’t prove that they do. It can be tempting to make excuses for the people who hurt us rather than having an honest conversation with them.
Living with a lie is a false reality that devastates our sense of peace. We question the authenticity of everyone who loves us because they don’t know what we’ve done or who we really are. We reject the acceptance of others because we think they’re accepting a fake. We’re terrified of being discovered. Terror and peace cannot coexist in our hearts.
Embracing reality does not mean taking it exactly as it is. If we spend more than we make, we either need to make more or have the humility to simplify our lifestyle. If an important person in our life doesn’t treat us the way they should, we ought to seek a change of behavior or distance from them. If we’re living a lie, we need to get to the sacrament of Reconciliation, stop committing the offense, and let the right people know what they need to know. Our deep, dark secrets don’t need to be posted on social media! But, the people who deserve to know, need to know.
Finding false realities is painfully simple. All you have to do is spend time in prayer asking God to show you what you’re hiding, what you’re avoiding thinking about. This can be extremely difficult and may require counsel from others, but if they’re not addressed they will siphon peace from a soul as sure as gravity silently pins us to the earth.
Spend some time in prayer asking to be shown the places that you need to embrace the reality of your vocations or state in life. Consciously name and surrender the desires that make you resent your God-given reality. Ask for the grace to choose, to embrace, the real life you live, not some fantasy.
Name the false realities that you try to ignore. You don’t have to fix them overnight, but at least admit that they aren’t tenable. They are stealing your peace and they must be faced in an appropriate way and at an appropriate time. Putting this off only prolongs the suffering.
No one said finding peace was easy. Everyone who has found peace says it’s worth it. God bless us on our journey!
Ready to continue down the path toward peace in everyday chaos? Surf's up! It's time to ride the wave (dude).
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