Get Real Here and Now

Last updated on: October 29, 2014 at 6:34 am by Fr. Dwight Longenecker

Get Real Here and Now 2014-10-29T06:34:08-05:00 Fr. Dwight Longenecker

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I’ve worn out the keyboard on my laptop.

Honestly. The keys don’t respond. Maybe my laptop is telling me something.

I spend so much time on the laptop because I write, write, write.

I’m blessed with lots of ideas so I clutter up the blogosphere, websites and publishers with my tappety tappings. (this is the new word for scribblings)

I’m busy offering analysis and opinions on the papacy, on church politics and commenting on this scrap there and this brouhaha there.

As if my opinion matters.

My laptop is reminding me, and I’m reminding you that the real world beckons.

Christianity is only real when it is local.

In other words, I have a wife and kids who need attention. I have parishioners who need attention. I have kids and teachers and parents in my school who need attention.

I do pay them a lot of attention, but I need to be reminded that it is in those relationships that my Christianity becomes real or not.

This is one of the gifts Pope Francis brings to the church.

He may not be the theologian that Benedict was or the philosopher that JP2 was, but he has that sense of the immanent being imminent.

In other words, the theory and the theology has to be lived out to be real, and that’s messy.

The drama in the Vatican is intriguing, but we also need to roll up our sleeves and get to work.

I have a friend who works as an evangelist on the streets of Haiti. He writers to me about his work helping people who earn $2 a day, who can’t afford even the most basic health care, who are addicted, addled and afraid. He prays with them, listens to them and laughs with them.

The theology and the theory matters, the Vatican politics matter, but in the end of the day we will be judged not by our opinions about church politics, but on how much we have loved.

Remember then, today to love God first and love your neighbor.

Take time to l0ve your wife, you husband, your kids, your friends and give a smile and a helping hand to everyone you meet.

Life is short and eternity is long.

In time the only reality is this present moment right now

In place the only reality is right here.

Make the right choices and make your Christianity real today.

If you do you’ll be like the kid in the picture. You’ll feel happy and fulfilled.

And when that’s done you can get back to the really, really, really important work of criticizing the pope’s taste in vestments on Facebook…

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