-While I know I’m not exactly a part of the CORE Team anymore, I thought I’d beg you to please read this to the kids while they were on retreat…thought it might serve as a nice little pick-me-up for them (and hopefully for all you adults…)
-As finals are quickly approach over here in Dallas, I’ve found myself often locked up in the far corner of the 3rd floor of the library, huddled over a stack of books, hastily reading by the light of a flickering candle, absorbing the truths that pour forth from Plato’s Republic and Homer’s Odyssey…but naturally, since I’m a perpetual procrastinator and in constant search of a reprieve from the tiresome work that is studying, I found myself reading one of my favorite books the other day…a book that often brings me back to my childhood, a simple tale that speaks of love and friendship, hope and despair, the mind and the heart…
-Antoine De Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince, perhaps one of the most profoundly inspiring books ever written, tells the story of a young boy from a far off planet who reveals the truths of life to a weathered, jaded middle aged man. As he tells of his adventures in “planet hopping” and meeting people of all types, this little prince is able to share with this old man how simple the complex concepts of love and friendship truly are…
-It is as the two are wandering through the desert, searching for a reprieve from the extreme heat that the young boy shares with the older man the greatest truth…something that each and every person needs to hear at least once in life.
-“People where you live,” the little prince said, “grow five thousand roses in one garden…yet they don’t find what they’re looking for…” “They don’t find it,” I answered.” “And yet, what they’re looking for could be found in a single rose, or a little water…” “Of course,” I answered. And the little prince added, “But eyes are blind. You have to look with the heart.”
-As I’m sure you all know, especially considering you were chosen to be members of the CORE Team, there is a greater purpose in life…a point to our existence…a reason why we are here. And, allow me to be professorial and philosophical for just a moment, that reason is of course, founded in the universal truth that God made man, God loved man to the point of sending His son to save man, and God continues to support and maintain the lives of man. That is to say, my young friends, our entire point of existence, our purpose in living, breathing – walking and talking – is God…He is why we are here, He is why we exist, and we cannot ever even attempt to deny that.
-Now how, you may ask yourself, does this possibly relate to a little boy’s rambling nonsense about hearts with eyes? Well in a very simple way…God saw with His heart…He did not see the world for what it would become – a tumultuous land ridden with people inclined to sin and deny His existence – but instead saw the world as a place that could, on some level, cultivate His love. And If God saw with His heart, and our entire purpose is God (the worship of and the striving to be like Him,) then we too must work to see with our hearts… Despite our natural tendencies to want to judge, our base desires to think ourselves better and more worth, we must, above all else, attempt to see as God saw…to love as God loved…to experience the world with a sense of love and compassion.
-Often times, we can, as very hardworking, focused members of this Diocesan CORE Team get caught up in the hustle and bustle of getting things done…we spend countless hours painting signs and writing witty phrases on banners that will hang for only 2 days and then be pulled down, never to be seen again. We brainstorm endlessly about what type of workshop would draw a crowd and what general theme the keynote speaker should focus on. In the mess that is the work we do in order to put on a good show, we often get lost…we get disillusioned…we lose a sense of what the actual point of it all really is. And just like the point in our lives is God -the focus to become like Him, to love unconditionally as He did- so too must be the focus of your work as CORE Team members.
-The Little Prince wanted the middle aged man to know that sometimes, despite our initial qualms, the most evident truths – the most startling realities – are right in front of us…We don’t need a thousand and one roses to discover their beauty…we simply need one. It is this idea of simplicity, this concept of experiencing and seeing things that are right in front of us, that can be most challenging and most difficult to establish and maintain. But it is in this challenge, it is in this difficult feat, that you will come to recognize and acknowledge how fantastic – how truly amazing – things will become when you begin to look at them with an eye of love, with an attitude attuned to the heart…
-So the point…the focus of this entire rant that I was suddenly compelled to email to Ms. T…
-This weekend, as a CORE Team, try to establish ways you can look with your heart…work together to become a group that personifies this concept. The motto for the year was “Becoming the change you wish to see in the world…” You become that change – you attain your goal – when you begin to love in every aspect of your life…when your heart, your love for others, becomes the thing that guides you and your head, your logical reason, becomes secondary.
-My hope and prayer is that this weekend proves fruitful on many counts…get your work done, have a fun time doing it. Bond as a CORE Team – establish these friendships that will truly stand the test of time…and most importantly, discover the sense of love that will guide you – begin to look at things of this world with your heart – and you will truly begin to discover God in all that you do.
