Awake, my soul!

"Awake O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light." Ephesians 5:14

We as a society are sleeping. I have realized this more and more as of late. We have used things like science, reason, technology, and all sorts of distractions to put our souls to sleep. We are constantly distracting ourselves from life. We are always connected to something. We are constantly distracting ourselves with our computers, ipods, kindles, etc. We are missing out on so much of what life has to offer. We are missing out on what it means to be human. Just the other day I saw some dad at the park with his little boy. The boy was playing and being funny and cute, but the dad was only paying attention to phone while texting. It was sad to see him missing out on his son.

I was recently at a talk and I got to listen to one of the Vatican’s astrologers, Br. Guy Consolmagno S.J. speak. He is a brilliant man with several degrees from MIT. He spoke a lot about religion and science, and how we cannot have science without religion. He spoke against materialism that we find today in Physicists who try to explain how the universe works in order to explain away God. Br. Guy commented that is the material universe is all that there is, it is meaningless. And if it is meaningless, than what is the point to studying it with science? This is a great point, however it caused me to think about the human experience, and how asleep we are that we don’t even notice the bigger reality.

We, as human beings, are the only creatures that have science. We are the only beings who have philosophy or art. Have you ever seen an animal stop and appreciate a sunset? Or have you known a tree to ask “who am I and how do I fit in to the bigger picture?” How about any other creature that explores? The reason that humans are the only creatures to look out and the universe and ask what is the meaning of everything? Is because that is the very thing that makes us human!

And so, the irony of it all is that scientists will try and use reason to explain how the entire universe works and come up with an answer disproving God, but the fact that he even asks the question PROVES that there is a God. Human beings, all of us, seek something more. We aren’t content with what is around us. We wonder why we are here, and what it means. Every human being gets hungry. When that happens we know that we need food. The fact that we are born with the desire for food and nourishment means that food and nourishment must exist. Otherwise why would we all be created with this desire? Likewise every human at some point or another has a desire for something bigger than themselves, something bigger than this world. The fact that we are all made with this desire for God proves that He exists; otherwise why would we be made with a desire for Him?

The irony to me behind all of this is that we negate the human experience with all of these distractions. We have scientists so focused on proving that God doesn’t exist and all the while they are driven by this question deep down inside that points to His existence. Chris Stefanick spoke at a conference to some teens recently and said, “People are always looking at the mountains and the stars and then asking ‘God, why don’t you revel yourself to me?’” Chris then wagered that God would answer, “Do you miss…everything?” Science can explain where mountains and stars come from, but that can’t explain that feeling you get in your soul when you notice how beautiful they are. Science can’t explain why it is only humans that appreciate and seek beauty. Science can’t explain why it is only humans who do science, and why doing science in the first place is what makes us human. We all just need to wake up to those experiences all around us and we will see more perfectly what God has for each and every one of us. We will wake up to what it truly means to be human.

“Awake, my soul! Awake, O harp and lyre! I will awake the dawn!” Psalm 57:8