Feeling Truly Alive

For the 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

I recently heard a joke that was rather dry and pretty grim, so of course I thought it was fantastic. It went something like this: ‘Remember how people were talking about the Mayan calendar predicting the world would end in 2012, and we sort of chuckled when, of course, it didn’t? Honestly, though, has anyone really felt alive since 2012?’
Maybe a bit bleak, but possibly possessing a grain of truth that might be worth thinking about. When was the last time you really felt alive? It’s not a bad question to ask oneself from time to time. It’s actually a question I will ask my students when trying to help them discern the ‘major’ they will pursue. When was the last time you truly felt alive? What were you doing? What was it about that moment that made you feel that way?
This line of questioning can sometimes help us discern a sense of vocation. Perhaps that which makes us feel ‘alive’ can give clues as to our passion, possibly a career in which we will not only be successful but find meaning and perhaps even joy in that work. A great many people hope, at least, what they do—for probably 50 or possibly more like 80 hours a week—is something worthwhile, contributing to something good, and maybe even is a source of real meaning in life.
Nonetheless, a much talked-about poll of Britons in 2015 revealed that when asked if their job made a ‘meaningful contribution’, 37% said ‘no’, and around 17% said they ‘weren’t sure’. We also hear frequently about the prevalence of ‘burnout’ being a normal part of careers. This is not necessarily anything new. However, it might cause us to think more fundamentally about where to find meaning, and in this regard I would recommend looking all the way to Ultimate meaning. What do we really want? What is most ultimate to us? What could possibly fulfil my seemingly infinite desires, and thus lead to a life of fulfilment?

I’ve tended to find the people following Jesus in this story from John annoying. They don’t really seem to know what they want. They seem to want more food; then maybe a sign; then manna of some kind. When Jesus tells them about bread that gives life to the world and these people tell him ‘give us this bread always’, I don’t think I can interpret that in a very faith-filled way. Especially since they are moments later going to grumble: ‘who does this guy think he is, talking like that?’ It might seem silly, but I wonder if they just want to have manna always so they don’t have to buy food ever again, or if they think the bread will be some sort of a ‘fountain of youth’ miracle food that will let them live forever. My general impression is that they really don’t know what they want, or what to want, and so basically just want anything or everything, for the wrong reasons.
Which is not particularly different than the situation of many people in our own time. In our world today we might hear frequent moralising about being ‘consumers’, or waxing guilty about how much we buy, or how much we want particular products. However, the real problem is not really wanting too much as much as it is wanting without any real sense of why we want what we want. It is desire without a proper object or end. This can be a very dangerous thing for us.
This is precisely what is meant in the letter to the Ephesians: ‘you must no longer live like the Gentiles do, with the futility of their minds.’ Their lives don’t have a proper end, which is life in God through Christ. So they live pointlessly, in a sense. I honestly don’t know why the Lectionary leaves out the next two verses. Maybe they sound too harsh on the Gentiles, or non-believers. But I think there are many important ideas in those lines that might be instructive for anyone living in today’s society.
‘They are darkened in understanding, alienated [ἀπηλλοτριωμένοι] from the life of God because of their ignorance because of their hardness of heart; they have become callous [ἀπηλγηκότες] and have handed themselves over to licentiousness for the practice of every kind of impurity to excess [πλεονεξίᾳ].’
Many people would express feeling alienated [ἀπηλλοτριωμένοι], whether it is in their work, or relationships, etc, and maybe this could be expressed in terms of a lack of meaning. If we recall the famous formulation by St. Augustine, ‘God is more intimate to me than I am even to my own self, and greater’, we obtain a fundamental insight. Our deepest identity is to be in loving relationship with God and neighbour. When Augustine realises this, he realises that nothing else but God will make him happy and fulfilled. This is why he says ‘order in me my love’. This is why he says ‘restless is the heart until it comes to rest in you, O God’. If we are alienated from God, it means that we have become alienated from our deepest identity.  Our own feelings of alienation can be complicated, and can manifest in a great many ways, but it generally means, in some way, that we might not be living as God is calling us to live.
Perhaps a more accurate translation of [ἀπηλγηκότες] ‘having become callous’, might be, ‘being past all feeling’, in the sense of having ceased to care, sometimes with a connotation of ‘despair’. There are so many ideas that come to mind, I cannot address them all, so it would be worth thinking some more about this. Sometimes we express a feeling of numbness that suggests being overwhelmed or worn-out. This kind of fatigue can cause us to isolate ourselves because lacking the morale for human interaction. Lack of empathy is also a common side-effect of busyness, but also business, insofar as competition, the importance of the bottom line, and a kind of calculating ruthlessness, can be seen as ‘necessary evils’ that are somehow acceptable, that it is just how business works in the ‘real’ world. Being without feeling, is very similar to the idea of being without care, ἀκηδίᾱ, which in Latin becomes known as Acedia; a very famous term in the tradition, being one of the so-called seven deadly sins. I’ll have to refrain for now in exploring the richness of that concept, to which no justice is done in translating it as ‘sloth’.
The word ‘excess’ is one with easy association to today’s consumer disorder. The Greek word used: πλεονεξίᾳ, or pleonexia, combines the words ‘more’ and ‘have’, and indicates a greed so extreme that it will stop at nothing, and will trample on human dignity to satisfy its desires. This is truly limitless, perverse, disordered desire, that has no proper end, and so can lead to endless acquisitiveness. There is no satiety here, and so can devolve into a kind of self-destructive emptiness.
These are all important ideas to reflect on in our society, since they have a prevalence that results in a power to shape our desires, and we can probably think of many examples. The answer given to the Ephesians is to stick to the formation they learned in Christ, and to help one another in this way of life, which is a very different way of life.

you must no longer live as the Gentiles do,
in the futility of their minds;
that is not how you learned Christ,
assuming that you have heard of him and were taught in him,
as truth is in Jesus,
that you should put away the old self of your former way of life,
corrupted through deceitful desires,
and be renewed in the spirit of your minds,
and put on the new self,
created in God’s way in righteousness and holiness of truth.

This is a holistic formation in trying to ‘put on the new self’, to put on Christ, so that we might live Christlike lives. God became human to show us how to be more fully human, and so reflecting more essentially the image and likeness of God.  In doing so we participate more fully in the life of God, which is our ultimate fulfilment. It is important that we seek this relationship, which is traditionally known as beatitude. It is indeed unfortunate when we adopt lower and less fulfilling ways of life, which often result in us becoming mere ‘labouring animals’, and thus settling for more immediate and fleeting pleasures. St. Thomas Aquinas called this ‘animal beatitude’. Aquinas goes on to say that the Incarnation revives hope in human dignity, and shows us that we can indeed strive for participation in the very life of God.
There are many things that might help us truly feel alive, but there is only one source and sustainer of life itself. The Father sends us the Son to teach us how to love the God who loves us infinitely, and in this relationship the Holy Spirit helps us to partake and enjoy that which is truly good and enter more deeply into the loving embrace of God; without whom we are restless, but in whom we experience true joy and happiness. Perhaps if we see our participation in the Eucharist as one of most profound times when we feel truly alive, it will help us properly order our other endeavours so that we feel truly alive in those as well.