Conquering routine and banality

LIFE cannot help but be marked if not filled with routine

and banality. We do the same things everyday. We follow more or less

the same schedule. Any change, especially for the better, seems to

take an eternity to happen. If we are not careful, we can fall into a

deep, even irreversible state of boredom. It’s like being dead while

still alive.

  

            That’s just how the cookie crumbles, and we just have to

learn to live with it. But there’s actually a way to handle this

existential predicament. It is to be with God who is always around in

the first place. It is to be filled with his presence and the

greatness and grandeur of his love that includes his eternal mercy and

compassion.

  

            With God, everything will always be new even if things are

the same. Things become fresh even if they are aged and moldy. With

him, we will always be in an exciting adventure even in the midst of

the harshest storms in our life.

  

            For this, we need to enliven our faith, hope and charity,

and develop the proper attitudes and practices. We should not allow

ourselves to be led and guided only by the dynamics of our human

systems—biological, physical, emotional, mental, economic, social,

political, etc. We should not just be at the mercy of our hormones,

feelings, passions, insights and the external trends around.

  

            Rather, we should see to it that these natural dynamics of

our human systems be inspired and infused with the spirit of God. In

other words, it’s God and his grace and everything that is involved in

that grace, that should be the living and moving principle of how we

think, feel, react, behave, etc. Short of this, we cannot help but be

swallowed up by the inevitable wave of routine, banality, boredom.

  

            For this, we certainly need some discipline. This is what

Christ himself referred to when he said: “Whoever wants to be my

disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily...” (Lk

9,23) In another instance, he said something similar: “Whoever does

not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” (Lk 14,27)

  

            We should know how to detach ourselves from our feelings

and even from our own thoughts, and simply allow ourselves be guided

by what our faith teaches us, regardless of how it feels or how we

think about it.  It’s not a matter of suppressing our feelings and our

human faculties, but of going beyond them, letting ourselves be led by

God’s grace.

  

            Many times, we have to take the so-called leap of faith

when we have to ignore the inputs of our own thoughts, feelings and

the trends around in order to accommodate the tenets of our faith no

matter how mysterious they are to us.

              This is not going to be easy, but just the same we have to

understand that Christ has already given us everything for us to be

able to live fully by faith and not just depending on our own

thoughts, feelings and the trends around.

  

            Everyday, if we make an effort to conform ourselves more

and more to what our faith teaches, we can grow more and more like

Christ who knew how to handle all the predicaments in life, including

death itself.

   

            That way we get to see and understand things the way

Christ sees and understands them. We would know how to make things new

and fresh, and avoid the pitfall of routine and banality.