Keeping things whole.

Yesterday, my brother’s goldfish died.

The whole ordeal was probably one of the most pathetic afternoons of my life. Mom sat by the tank watching as Goldie slowly lost control of his (or her) body while I spent two hours on and off my computer attempting to diagnose and cure the freaking goldfish. There were a couple moments when the fish started getting better (which subsequently made me felt more confident in my choice of career, which is medicine). Convinced it had some sort of swim bladder problem from nitrate poisoning (the poor thing helplessly floated upside down, its motion under the reign of our water pump), we switched the water (twice) and waited while my dad and brother (Ryan) watched football.

The only hit of sadness I saw in my brother was when I pulled him upstairs to say goodbye to Goldie. But he was even sadder when the Chargers ended up losing the game.

Anyway, the whole family seems to have moved on – we have two new fish (Billy and Willy) occupying the tank and Ry’s only upset over the Chargers’ loss. So why was I still mopey over this stupid fish, who wasn’t even mine and who was a pain in the ass to care of in the first place? Why couldn’t I just move on?

One of my favorite poems of all time is Mark Strand’s “Keeping Things Whole”:

In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body’s been.

We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.

One of the hardest things I’ve found about this whole religion business (and I know I’m not the only one) is consistently surrendering my desires and plans to something, or someone, else – something that I’m not even sure I believe in at times. This is pretty consistent with my inability to adapt to change (a personal flaw, but maybe you can relate) and is exacerbated by the fact that I’m surrounded by abnormal people my age who have planned out the next 10 years of their lives and careers. Sure, in hindsight I see a lot of things have happened for a reason, and “God has a plan” is a pretty nice and comforting phrase to be able to throw around. But then I think “Hey, you can work your ass off all you want and you can be a great person but life still might suck” and suddenly surrendering my plans to something I have no control over doesn’t seem so great after all. And this is where things become less-than-optimal.

Much of what I have realized in the past couple months is that the qualms I had with Catholicism weren’t really qualms with Catholicism, but with what I thought was Catholicism based on societal constructs. The concept of freewill was almost like a catch-22 and it left me with two extremes – think that nothing I do matters (and consequently lead me to a life of anarchy, apathy and fighting the man) or think that God’s got it all under control (and my job is to sit around like a lazy bum and let Him take care of things). Well, I certainly got it all wrong.

One of the most beautiful parts of the Bible that I’ve encountered so far is the night when Jesus is arrested (before his crucifixion). He prays,

Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not by my will, but yours be done (Luke 22:41-42)

I suppose the concept of humility to realize your desires and plans aren’t necessarily the best for you (or the world at large) and the faith to accept that there are bigger plans was something that resonated with me since it’s always been so hard for me to do. Yet here’s Jesus, the one guy who could legitimately do whatever he wanted, doing it. He was probably on to something.

Unfortunately, just because it’s the right thing to do doesn’t mean it’s the easiest thing to do (which, in general, is probably the suckiest thing about being Catholic). And I realize, in this entry, that I’ve left a lot of issues unresolved. But for now, I’m moving on. Moving to keep things whole, moving to keep God’s plan whole.