Yeah, I Still Got It: Hit on by a Drunk Atheist!

It was a beautiful spring Sunday in Boulder. Like many Sundays' prior, I had enjoyed my day by hiking the foothills, participating in evening Mass, and finished the night by listening to live Irish music, drinking fine irish beer, and having a great conversation with friends! Note: Being a(n) (Irish) Catholic involves having life to the Full!

Unlike to prior weekends something different was going to happen. Wait for it.... I was going to be hit on by a woman, a first in a really long time. I was in the midst of a conversation with a student when I spotted a woman across the bar. She was staring right at me. I, however, not wanting to jump to conclusions looked around to find no other man around me. What a surprise!?!  I'm 32 years old in a college town and it's quite apparent I need to start worrying about getting sunburned on the top of head! :)

I thought the woman was beautiful, but I was invested in the conversation with the student considering to join FOCUS.  So I decided not to pursue that conversation with the woman staring right at me! But alas it didn't matter because shortly after jumping back into the conversation with the student, she made her way over to me! Interrupting my conversation with the student, she began our conversation with the following, "Are you in the band?"

What a classy pick up line! The instant the words came out, her intoxicated state was apparent. This may explain why she was hitting on me! So I stopped my conversation with the student and engaged the intoxicated woman. (Note: this is not to be interpreted that I thought the woman was intoxicating). The small talk went as following with small questions like, "where are you from? What brought you out to Boulder? What do you do for a living?"

Of course any question you ask, you have to eventually answer (a small missionary trick)... And so I did... "I'm from the Midwest. My work brought me out here. I'm a Catholic missionary." She abruptly said "Oh, I don't F***ing care about religion." I was caught off guard. Did she think I was trying to share my faith with her? I was just explaining a fact of who I was! So I repeated the statement, "My work brought me out here, I'm a Catholic Missionary." I received the same response, "Like I said, I don't F***ing care about religion!"

Of course you know there is a reason for her intense statements filled with anger and hatred. So I asked, "Do you want to tell me about it?" She responded, "Why don't you tell me?" My heart of course picked up its pace. What do I tell her? Do I tell her my story? How the Lord pursued my heart? Do I talk about God's existence or of His love for us? So, I asked the Holy Spirit to guide me and I said "Well..." And again I was interrupted... She stated, "Here, we go again..." and took a sip of her drink.

So the Lord had a different plan for the conversation. I asked her, "Do you even want to hear what I have to say?" She responded with a clear, "NO!" She then exclaimed with strong confidence, "Science is my religion." Without hesitation I responded to her total disregard to my Faith with, "And what has Science brought you?" It seemed like she was going to say something, but it was my turn to interrupt! "Except loneliness and emptiness! At least that's what Science has brought me!" (Note: I had earlier squeezed in the brief conversation that I had received my Engineering degree from University of Illinois concentrated in Robotics, to try to soften the idea that I was a religious fanatical denying the world completely of anything good.) How intense! I was expecting a middle finger, the throwing of water in my face, maybe some more swearing, but you could see that I hit something in her claim about science being a religion.  Though science had made so many promising claims to her, it still didn't fill the void in her heart. She just walked away slowly mumbling something like "Good luck with that."

I bring up this conversation, as intense as it was, not to show that at the age of 32 in a college town I still have the ability to pick up (intoxicated) women. No! 

I bring this up because I too struggle and turn to the world for answers! I turn to entertainment (TV, movies, concerts, music), friendships, etc... to fill the void of loneliness and emptiness. We, to our own detriment, turn to quickly to the world for answers. When clearly the world doesn't have the answer! Or does it?!?  St. Thomas Aquinas gives us a great insight into this truth:

"Because man, in deserting God had stooped to corporeal things, it was necessary that God should take the flesh and by corporeal things should afford him the remedy of salvation"

What a beautiful understanding of God! What a beautiful reality of our Christian Faith! Man deserted God and turned to the world for all their answers. God could have, and justly so, left us to the world, but it was not in God's desire. God desires Man to be and share in the relationship between Triune exchange of Persons (A very deep Mystery) . But to allow humanity to enter this relationship and exchange of Divine life, God would have to become Flesh (or corporeal as St. Thomas Aquinas put it). And God would use a corporeal body to bring Man into the Divine life. 

St. Ambrose commenting on the Our Father Prayer makes a similar claim:

"O man, you did not dare to raise your face to heaven, you lowered your eyes to the earth, and suddenly you have received the grace of Christ all your sins have been forgiven. From being a wicked servant you have become a good son. Then raise your eyes to the Father who has begotten you through Baptism, to the Father who has redeemed you through his Son, and say: "Our Father."

It's because of our broken nature we always turn to the world for the answers! So God came into the world to draw us to Himself!  So the answer we seek, ironically, is in the world, but not of the world. The answer is Jesus Christ!   Don't be fooled by the promises of this world.  Don't be fooled by the empty promises of the world, but turn to the ultimate promise of God who came into the world so we may be drawn into something beyond this world!

St. Irenaeus of Lyons - "The Son of God became the Son of Man that the sons of men might become the sons of God"