But I’m not sure of what to do with the advice that says, “The rest should all become background noise…”
As some CAF members know, I am heavily involved with the sport of figure skating, specifically the discipline of synchronized skating. I don’t skate myself, but my husband and two daughters skate, and my daughters coach Nationally-ranked synchro teams.
I am quite passionate about this sport, and have been since I was a little girl. …
…I really don’t want all this to become “background.”
Is this wrong of me? What should I do? I don’t want the Lord Jesus to be second-in-line to figure skating, but I also don’t want to give up the “fight” to make figure skating the best sport in the world!
Surely Christians do not have to give up our secular interests? I see myself and our family as “salt and light” in the sport of figure skating. We bring Jesus to the rink by being there.
I’m sure that others on CAF have interests that they are passionate about, and I hope that this thread can help them, too.
Took me a while to find where this quote came from; I finally located it back on the other thread on the Spirituality forum so I thought I’d teleport it here because I think Cat raises an important concern.
First of all, my comment on “background noise” was really intended within the context of the liturgical/Vatican II debate. What should become background noise is all the arguing about this or that form, this or that manner of receiving communion (i.e. hand or tongue), whether or not the SSPX reunites with Rome… all are relatively immaterial to one’s inner conversion and learning to “do the laundry with love” as Brother JR so aptly put it.
But extending outwards from that context for a minute, I think I should perhaps comment on an important aspect of the Rule of St. Benedict and that is the rule that a monk is not to own anything personally. For the purpose of this discussion, I think I can say we can define “own” as not just owning material objects, but “owning” a special attachment to something. Of course the Rule was written for a community of monks. A special challenge of being an oblate intending to be “inspired” by the Rule rather than living to its letter, is application of the Rule to secular life.
Of course we all have families; we own homes, we own cars, we have hobbies and passions, we have our work, etc.
My own favourite secular activities are aviation and cycling.
There is nothing wrong with all of this. But I think the Rule compels us to not develop an
unhealthy attachment to the things that we enjoy, lest we fall into a form of idolatry.
Here’s how conversion impacted me. To maintain a pilot’s license, one has to undergo a medical on a regular basis (at my age, 54, every two years, with an electrocardiogram every 4 years). If you asked me 10 years ago how I’d feel if lost my medical (and thus the ability to fly) I’d have answered that I’d have been devastated. In fact in 2005 I came close due to a medical condition now well under control, and I was beside myself at the prospect of losing the privilege to fly.
Last year I came close again, due to early signs of diabetes, though it still isn’t bad enough to disqualify me for a medical certificate. My reaction was “meh… so I’ll do other things with my free time, maybe travel more with my wife, ride my bike more… who cares?” I attribute my ongoing “conversion” to an increasing sense of detachment from worldly things.
It doesn’t mean I can’t use them or enjoy them. It does mean however that I cannot let them rule my life. I find also as I age my focus changes. Apparently I’m not the only one at this stage to feel less and less importance in things material and more in things spiritual and human. I also changed jobs a few years ago and am no longer in management, I’m content to be an IT analyst, minding my own business. All those years I tried to be something that I was never comfortable being, a manager. What I was really attached to were the trappings: the private office, the expense account, the overseas travel, hearing the sound of my own voice at meetings. Now I work in cube land, have to keep track of my hours, have nobody under me, no expense account, no travel (except by subway to some client sites… not exactly glamour). To my surprise I don’t care if people think I flopped as a manager. My stress levels are way lower, I’m happier, and it turns out cube land is just fine and I enjoy the social and teamwork aspects of being closer to my coworkers.
A couple of days a week I work from home, and a couple of weeks ago I was walking down to the mailbox. I was wearing tan shorts, a salmon orange t-shirt, a white Tilley hat, and lime green crocs. I realized I must have been quite a sight, but instead of being worried about being seen, it gave me a good laugh.
We go through stages in life. I think what I’m trying to say is that having a healthy sense of detachment from what motivates us at a particular stage, better prepares us for what God has in store for us when He moves us into the next stage, on His timetable, not ours. So when we suddenly realize that we can no longer partake of a favourite activity due to health or circumstances, we accept this with grace as a gift from God (a lesson we can learn from the book of Job) and move on to what He has in store for us for the next stage. Oddly enough as I felt more and more detachment from, in particular, aviation, my wife and I grew much closer. I’d now much rather spend a Saturday morning going on a bike ride or hike in the local mountains with her than going flying with my buddies (I hear a lot of “hey how come we don’t see you so often at the airfield anymore?”). A closer relationship with my wife was God’s reward. She’s become the one person in my life that I want to spend virtually all my free time with. I realize now how so much more important nurturing that relationship is than flying, and how much I neglected it by leaving her alone every single Saturday morning for a number of years I’m too embarrassed to mention. I came to realize that too much of my ego was wrapped up in being able to fly.
So no it is not something “wrong” about you to still have a strong passion about skating and in particular for you it’s a family activity and that’s a very good thing! The family that prays together and plays together stays together! Conversion won’t change your love of skating, but conversion will help you keep it in perspective and context, and if for some reason God puts you in a position where you do have to move on, it will be easier. I think for most of us it happens naturally anyway, but we can’t in the immediacy of a favourite activity, imagine how we would live without it. I think inner conversion helps one prepare for those inevitable life changes so we can accept our aging with grace and serenity.
Richard Rohr has a couple of good books about this process. I mention him with hesitation because he’s not a favorite of traditionalists, but I think what he has to say is extremely important and I love his books. He’s also a Franciscan, incidentally.
