The word “beyond” has been on my mind a lot, especially as 2012 came to a close and a new year is laid before us. I so much want to go beyond: beyond the doubts of my faith, beyond the darkness life can sometimes bring, beyond the shallow end…beyond. I want to go deeper, beyond the chaos and into the bright life of faith, into deeper relationships and a life spent glorifying God. Maybe it is the new year, but maybe it isn’t, but I think it is time to go beyond.
As the year drew to a close, I found myself reflecting on the instantaneous nature of our world, and my ever-shrinking attention span. I read what feels like a zillion blogs and books and such, but my attention span can be quite short. Sometimes it is so short I don’t even finish reading a tweet before my mind is some place else. I want to go beyond the instant, the quick news, short text messages, and tired old e-mails. I want to go deeper, to strive for fellowship, sisterhood, and holiness as often as possible. Sure, tweets, texts, and e-mails can all be useful, but if that’s all we’ve got then I don’t want it. You’ll find me in a desert meditating on life rather than submit to a life confined to tweets and e-mails.
I read a reflection on this very topic on New Year’s Eve. The gist of that reflection was that Christ came so that we could go beyond, so that we could go deeper. All the time up to His coming had been like Skype conversations and web-chats with your grandchild. Christ’s coming, however, is when, at long last, we have the ability to actually hold that grandchild. I don’t have grandchild, but that point isn’t lost on me. Christ came so that we could go beyond and go deeper into His heart – and we do that through deep fellowship with others, and by striving for holiness. Can we do those things through blogs, social media, and the like? Sure. But in my experience, the most meaningful conversations I’ve had and the times I’ve had the most fun are when I turn off the outside distractions and become fully present where ever God has called me to be, be it adoration, Mass, or coffee with a friend. So this year, let’s go beyond the instant, the need to check Twitter every 30 seconds, and go deeper into His heart, which tweets eternally for us, and is not limited by the number of characters. His love is limitless.
