Thanks Giving

Not the holiday, the act. Thanks giving. I went to confession today with my priest. I didn’t even realize I was going to confess. We were just sitting around talking, and then there I was, confessing and feeling much better for it. My penance? Give a thousand dollars to charity. No, I’m joking. 100 hail mary’s. No, again I’m joking…penances don’t really work that way anymore, at least not in my experience. “Sergio, I want you to offer up the Eucharist in thanks giving.” I thought that was a very fitting penance, considering that I woke up feeling quite blessed.

29 years. Look at me go! Pretty soon I’ll be 80, and I won’t have the mind to write…but fret not, I’ll still have this pretty face, just deeper grooves I suppose. 29 years and I’m on a mountain top. At least that’s how it feels. It’s been a great day, and I haven’t even done all that much.

I spent the last month, traveling with family and friends up in Northern California. I saw a lot of old friends, friends I hadn’t seen in years, and I got to spend a really great amount of time with my family. It has been 4 years since my mom, my sister and I did a big camping trip like this, and with the way life goes, who knows when we’ll do it again. I used to get bothered and nervous by the uncertainty of life. I’d spend all my time worrying about future times, instead of just enjoying the time at hand. I can’t say I never do that anymore, but I’m getting better.

Before leaving on the trip, I thought, “Great! I’ll get some writing done.” I think I wrote all of one page at best. Sometimes things don’t go the way you want them to, and you can either huff and puff and blow houses down leaving poor little piggies homeless, or you can knock on new doors until someone opens up and invites you in for tea and biscuits. In fact, I haven’t written much at all over the last 4 months, but I’ve just chalked it up to living a lot. Maybe that’s a copout, but it’s a copout that has brought me quite a bit of peace so I’ll keep it in my pocket.

I am lucky. Every single one of us is. When I was younger I used to look down my nose at others my age that had not traveled as I had, or had not gone to university. Many of my peers, kids I grew up with, had had children young, had married foolishly, had been imprisoned, had made stupid decisions. I would think myself better than they, and shake my head at the decisions they’d made. “They chose the life they’re living,” I’d say to myself, so proud of the life I’d chosen. I was a prick.

The fact is, I’ve made tons of horrible decisions in my life. I took risks, not noble risks, but foolhardy risks based on lust, on greed, on selfishness, on drunkenness. I took risks with my life and the lives of others. Do you know why I’m not in jail, a father, on skid row…homeless? Part of it was my family, part of it was me, but the vast majority of it was luck. Actually, that’s too secular for what I feel. I’m at where I’m at because of forces I don’t understand, and I call those forces God and His divine plan. I had very little to do with much of where my life has led me.

Two men, each young and adventurous, decide to invest heavily in the stock market. One decides that Stock A is the best investment. The other decides to invest in Stock B. As it turns out, Stock A skyrockets, and B plummets. They go on to live very different lives. Did A make a wise investment? No. The fact is it could’ve gone either way, and it went his. Another roll of the dice and…

So what’s the point? God loves some people more than others, and those struggling should consider themselves cursed? No…I’ve been down that road and it is ugly and self abusive. No, in fact wealth to me is a useless indicator of favor or success. The point is that, whatever we have, it is given to us. Being the Catholic I am, I say that it is given to us by God. If it makes people feel better to call it luck, then so be it. But all that we have, is a blessing, and I think it’s important to remember, that we have what we have because of forces outside of ourselves, and all the things that we have are on loan for only a time.

And where am I? I’m not speaking from a place of wealth. I live at home with my mother and sister. Once a week, I have to get to the bank to deposit a check of about $100 to make sure my account gets back out of the negative. I don’t have a job (though I’m looking), and my car is about to die out any day. I have no wife, no girlfriend, no children, and I have no earth shattering accomplishments under my wing. But I have my faith, I have my family, and I have friends who love me, and whom I love. I have a roof over my head and food in my belly. I have memories.

Everyone has something. And though I do not advocate laziness or lives of comfort, I do believe that in recognizing the blessings in our live, we are humbled, and humble hearts beat easier, and people with easy hearts are happier, and happier people love more. And loving more…