WHAT DO WE REALLY NEED?

Back in the day, way back in the day, I remember overhearing a conversation between two mothers both of whom and whose families I knew. One was talking about her son whom she said was trying to find himself. My first cynical thought was that I didn’t know he was lost, but I really knew what she meant. He was at a stage in his young life where he really did not know who he was or even what he needed. And he was not alone.

I remembered that conversation while Arlena and I were watching Disney’s The Princess and the Frog. (By the way, there tends to be a lot of good theology in Disney animations and you don’t have to dig too deeply to find it.) There was a line in one of the songs that said something like this: “You need to know who you are before you know what you need.” Isn’t that the truth?

We know there is much that we tend to want and almost believe that we need. As we are unpacking from our move, we are discovering that we have a lot of things we thought we needed but actually wanted but really did not need in the first place. Our wants and our needs got mixed up in the moment. Now Goodwill and the Vietnam Vets are becoming the beneficiaries of our non-necessities.

If there is any consolation in this, and there is very little to be honest, we are not alone. Is the issue that, like the young man in the conversation, we’re still trying to find out who we are so that we can honestly discern between wants and needs or do we ever find out who we are so that we go through life searching for an elusive answer to one of life’s fundamental questions?

Is the real life-question “Who am I?” And is there an answer? Well, there had better be. And there is. I am a priest, a husband, a father, a grandfather for starters. I could add to the list. But who am I essentially? Is there a word that envelopes each and every one of these other words that I use to describe myself? And when I find that word, will it tell me not only who I am but also what I need?

The answer for me is “yes”. And that word that describes all of me is “Christian.” What kind of Christian I am and how I live out my Christian faith aside, it still tells me all that I need to know about what my needs are. The one need I have, the one need any one of us has who claims the name “Christian” is to make certain all my words and actions are loving, loving and serving the other first and foremost.

No matter what our vocation is at the moment – priest, student, husband, wife, child, boss, etc. – everything we say and do is to be said and done in a loving and serving manner. Until we come to that understanding about our life, we are still trying to find ourselves. Finding out who we are (Christian) helps us know what we need in living out the moment. We will be given whatever we need, but we have to live it day by day.