One

More Active or Less Active?

I went into the bookstore at the airport and was amazed at all the books offering people completely opposite advice on how to live. Some books have titles like “Determined to Win,” “The Road to Success,” and “Relentless Drive.” These books all tell you how to work harder, never give up, and visualize your goals. They tell you stories about rich, successful men, Elon Musk types who become hugely rich and influential. Other books have titles like “Slowing Down,” “Smelling the Roses,” and “The Path to Peace.” They talk about being mindfully aware, about resisting the impulse to be too active, too ambitious, too driven. They celebrate stories of wise Buddha-types, who renounce the rat-race and choose to live quietly and simply and contentedly. 

In other words, some books tell us to become happy by becoming more active. Other books tell us to become happy by becoming less active. So which is it?

Two

Disordered Passivity

There is such a thing as being too passive, too mellow, and laid-back. It should be obvious that those who never actually do anything with their lives aren’t models for anyone. These folks need to get their act together and get going, do something worthwhile, light a fire. We only have one life, and it’s essential that we not waste it.

Nor should we go in for those religious systems or techniques that encourage us to just not care about anything other than our own tranquility. We should care. Life is short and precious, and eternity is around the corner. Trying to achieve total indifference, trying to get to some sort of personal Nirvana of complete passivity and complacency, that can’t be the goal. Life is way too good, way too important, for that.

We should be doing something. We should be working hard. We should be fighting. But how? That’s the question.

Three

Disordered Activity

The religions and techniques of the Far East often focus way too much on passivity and trying to achieve indifference. On the other hand, the Western world has become absolutely obsessed with hyperactivity. We’re utterly enslaved to our ambition, to “winning,” to “success”. Workaholism, wealth, status, and political preoccupations dominate our lives. To-do lists and plans for the future govern us from dawn till dusk. Sometimes, when we’re about to burn ourselves out, we take a break from our own hyperactivity and entertain ourselves with a hyperactive superhero movie or a hyperactive news binge. Then, maybe, we go right back to overworking.

This is also definitely not the right way to live. This is a panic-driven life that feeds some level of anxiety. The non-Christian world can’t seem to get the balance right between too much activity and too little activity. So what’s the Christian solution?

Four

Christ – a Man of Peace on a Mission

As always, the ultimate solution to our dilemma isn’t so much a formula as it is a person. And that Person is Jesus. Jesus is the perfect exemplar of peaceful quiet and commitment to a mission. Jesus is a man at peace. His peace is an expression of His commitment to prayer. He always takes time out to pray. Even when everyone is looking for Him, when everyone is trying to get Him to do something, He makes sure He has time set aside for silence and stillness before His heavenly Father. And the result is that He can be calm and unresponsive to the hate of the Sanhedrin, the cruelty of the Roman Soldiers, the fear of Pilate, and the irrationality of the mob. 

But Jesus is also a man on a mission. He has come to set the world on fire. He does His Father’s work. He takes care of the sick. He challenges those in authority. At one point, He creates a public disturbance in the temple. And at the end, He saves the World.

So many people today are desperately trying to make a name for themselves, trying to make an impact, trying to create a legacy. No one’s name will ever be as impactful, no one ever left their mark so deeply on earth, as Jesus Christ. Jesus is at peace. But He’s not content with things the way they are. He has come to make things better - for everyone. And that has to be our mission as well.

Five

Monks and Crusaders – People of Prayer and People of Action

The Catholic Church is a Church of monks and crusaders. It’s a Church of people who, like Christ, know how to find peace and how to fight tirelessly for the Kingdom.

We get peace by praying every day, by recognizing that the world and its glory are passing away, and by working to overcome our disordered attachments to goods and pleasures that are merely transient. But we are also active workers of the Kingdom. We don’t settle for being content with the way things are. We will not be content, we will not put our labors aside, until we have done everything we can to make our souls and our world as much like the Kingdom of Heaven as possible. 

Till then, we preach, we evangelize, we work at the jobs that serve society and neighbor, and we pray, “Thy Kingdom Come, and Thy Will be Done on Earth as it is in Heaven.”

So here’s the question for each of us: In what way do I need to cultivate the peace of the monk? How do I need to commit more firmly to prayer, or reflect more rigorously on the temporary and unsatisfying character of the worldly things with which I’m too preoccupied?

And in what way do I need to cultivate the zeal of the crusader? Where do I need to take action to spend time and build a real friendship with my spouse, kids, and friends? Where do I need to build up the Kingdom of Heaven, in these few years left to me in the battlefield of earth?