Our constants and variables

OUR life can be described in mathematical terms, with constants and variables making up the elements and factors in the equation. Of course, this is just an aid—not meant to capture all of life’s nuances--but it can give light to our situation.

Yes, we have constants and variables in our life. It’s good to know them as well as how to blend them together. There are things that are absolute and others that have a relative value, things necessary and contingent, fixed and movable.

We have to outgrow the predicament of the ancient Greek world where one camp, headed by Parmenides, said everything is permanent, nothing changes, while Heraclitus of the other camp said everything changes, nothing is fixed.

Among the constants in our life is God, his existence, his goodness, his power, his mercy and love for us, etc. He is the absolutely necessary being in whom we should trust and love all the time. In fact, our sense of what is constant and what can be considered variable depends on our faith and love of God.

We should not allow this faith and love of God to be diluted by our purely human affairs and concerns. Whatever be the twists and turns of our life, may it be that our faith and love of God always remain, and can even grow stronger with every trial.

We have the capability for that. Our faith tells us that God never scrimps on his grace for us. He is quite lavish in giving it—“Where sin has abounded, grace has abounded even more.” And our nature has the capacity to be raised beyond its usual limits, because there’s something spiritual in it that is open to infinite possibilities.

This faith and love of God should be with us to resolve everything in our life, no matter how humanly insolvable it is. We need to be reminded more often and more deeply of this truth, since we tend to get stuck with the uncertainties of our human affairs.

Our present culture tends to exaggerate our urge to manage and control everything, such that we can fall into the funny situation of thinking that everything absolutely depends on us. There’s no more room for a sense of abandonment in God’s providence.

The ideal attitude, to my mind, is that given our nature as free and intelligent beings, it’s proper to think that everything depends on us. But since our intelligence and will have God as their source and object, we should always realize that everything first of all depends on God. We have to find a way to merge these two mentalities in us.

Anyway, this tendency to control everything can start imperceptibly in us in that almost automatic reaction of always making rash judgments on anything we see. Many times these judgments go uncorrected and made to end in more bizarre conclusions.

Instead of seeing things with the eyes of God, that is, with love, with understanding and compassion, with eagerness to forgive and to help, we just allow our own weaknesses and biases to guide us.

We mistake our spontaneous thoughts to be the sincere and fair thoughts, not realizing that these thoughts often spring from our own limitations, not mention, our own sinfulness.

Since our thoughts are very private and personal, they can tend to grow simply on their own, fiercely defending their so-called independence and autonomy, again not realizing that they need to be conformed not only to the rules of logic, but also and most especially to the requirements of faith and charity.

Given our congenital weakness, we need to educate ourselves to think properly, always infusing it with faith and charity, so that even in our inevitable conflicts, we would know how to resolve issues.

Perhaps we would not be able to put closure to these issues in the political, economic or social sense, but with faith and charity we can manage to have some resolution proper to our true dignity as persons and children of God. This is always possible.

This is something we have to learn well, and quickly and massively. Our present world cannot help but develop into ever more diverse cultures, mentalities and styles. These things have to be respected and even promoted. But we have to learn how to hold everything together by adhering to our faith and charity.

These are the constants that bring all the variables of our life into one working, healthy whole that all of us should be aiming at.