Stopping Time

It doesn't happen. Never. Even in the quietest moments of our life, the few parts of it that we have to sit back and meditate on life's greatest mysteries and questions, you can never completely stop time. It may seem like it pauses slightly during said moments of reflection but the reality of life is that time doesn't sleep. It doesn't take vacation days or call in sick. It doesn't take a break every couple of centuries to rest on its laurels. Time's sole purpose in this world is to be the universe's constant. Something that can never fail it. Something that can never fail us. We take breaks, hiatuses, vacations, respits... power naps, cat naps, naps under our desks at work for you Seinfeld fans out there... coffee breaks, lunch breaks, work breaks. But time does none of this. And it never will.
We, however, will stop... someday. Right now we just take pauses, like the ones listed above. But the reason we never truly stop until natural death is because we have a zest for life. We have an inherent, inevitable part of our soul that quenches knowledge and discovery. We want answers... we want questions... more of the latter than the former I believe, too. We want challenge, and formidable tasks to be presented to us. We want to help the helpless, shepherd the lost, clothe the naked, guide the blind. We want to be microcosms of Christ Himself. We strive to beat on so we can discover all that God in His infinine mercy and wisdom has in store for us. Not so we can wait and see how much riches and prestige he bestows on us. To see how he wants us to serve his ministry in our daily lives. Yes, that's right. Daily. We may not all realize it but we all have powerful destinies planned for us by our Lord God. He sees in us things we never even thought we'd be capable of. He counts us worthy to proclaim His name, though not by screaming it from a mountain top. Here's how he wants us to do it, and how we in our heart of hearts, want to ourselves to do it as well: counsel a confused friend; give food to the hungry; secretly give money to the poor, not wanting any recognition or acknowledgment; talk to the lonely; give someone a shoulder to cry on; use the best of yourself to bring out the best in other people. And most importantly, listen. Listen to the elderly, the poor, the sick, the meek, the hungry. To those who are reaching out to you. To those who need you, though they'd never admit it. Reach out your hand to your fellow man; pray he takes it.
So I graduate tomorrow... and that's why I write this blog tonight, at a time when I really should be resting up for tomorrow so that I don't fall asleep in Walt Whitman auditorium tomorrow while diplomas are being handed out. If anyone's actually reading this, and caring about it, you probably are asking: why did he just do that? Wax poetic about how we should treat others how we would like to be treated and about charisms we learn about in Church weekly? Simple. Because even though we've all heard that stuff before, it needs to reverberate in us. It needs to have a lasting affect. It needs to be remembered. Especially by the Xaverian graduating class of 2009. We've all had our personal trials and tribulations, but the bottom line is we all brought out the best in each other at SOME point of our academic career in Xaverian High School. And we can all bring out the best in other people in the same manner as we did in that building in other buildings, in other cities, in other states, in other countries, in other ways. Our service to the world and to God wasn't completed when our Senior Involvement time ended. No, sir. Service and commitment are necessary for all aspects of our lives... professionally, academically, spiritually. And before I get off my soapbox, I'd just like to make one more point:
Service is integral to our spiritual formation and life experiences in general for one specific, non-negotiable reason. Helping others helps ourselves. It enrichens our life experiences. It makes life worthwhile. It gives us purpose. It humanizes us. It forms us, and shapes us, and molds us. It is what makes us the manifestations of Jesus Christ we all want ourselves to be. And remember, while we have a definite end, time does not. It will keep on ticking until there is nothing left to tick for. Which is to say, forever. Human beings have the capacity for great things, all of them, if they just set their hearts to it.
It is with mixed emotions that roughly 12 hours from now my commencement from Xaverian High School will begin. I will miss my friends, and the deep bonds I have formed with my brethren there. I will miss the teachers who were so integral in my formation as a man of character and maturity. But as time ticks on, I also realize that there is another constant I can always rely on: my family. Who were there when I was introduced to this world some eighteen years ago. Who worried about me when I refused to eat when I was two days old and had to be fed intravenously. Who held me in their arms when I was an infant and sang me to sleep. Who baptized me in the name of Jesus Christ when I was 2 months old. Who nurtured me my whole life. Who was at my pre-school Graduation... my fifth grade graduation... my eighth grade graduation. All leading up to yet another Graduation to add to the roster: my graduation from High School. The surreal feeling that it seems just yesterday I was tearing up at my graduation from Mark Twain will probably leave me someday. Probably about four years from now when I realize how surreal it seems that it feels like just yesterday I graduated from high school.
The past fades away as the present, changing constantly, awaits the future. Nothing will hold back the night to paraphrase Billy Joel in "Two Thousand Years." So we beat on...