We are called to holiness. We are. We may not know it, deep down, but we are. The hard thing is we may not believe it. But we are called to holiness.
Holiness is daunting. There’s too much to swallow. So, I have a suggestion. It’s not a solution because I don’t know if it works. So I’m going to try it also. I’m going to try to be holy in all situations and maybe I’ll remember, and maybe I’ll succeed in being holy at least once a day. That’s not asking too much. If I succeed once a day then what about building on that and going for twice a day?
I start a diet every day. It’s the same diet over and over. I’m watching what I eat. I try to stay away from fried foods and sweets. And I try to watch my calories. There are some days I fail. But there are some days I succeed. If I treat holiness as a diet would I be able to say that there are some days I succeed?
I can be snarky. No, it’s true. I can. When I was a young adult one of my favorite pastimes was to sit at the mall with my sister and make fun of people. We would be on the floor laughing. We made fun of their hair, their clothes, their friends, their actions. It was funny but we didn’t make fun of people that society makes fun of. People with disabilities were off the table. The obvious poor were off the table. The old were off the table. But everyone else was fair game. Now that I have a video camera in my phone I ought to do it one day just to show you what I’m talking about. Of course it’s not as fun without my sister beside me.
Sometimes I do that, now. I won’t say what I’m thinking but I am thinking it, and I am absolutely hilarious. But would a holy person do that? Maybe there’s a reason their hair looks like it does. Maybe their washer is broken and those are the only clean clothes they have. Maybe they’re with the people they are because those people need a friend and they’re the only friend they have. Maybe I should consider what’s going on in their life before I start trashing them even in my own head. And you know why? Because if I think it then I can say it without thinking. There have been so many words I’ve uttered in my life that I wish I could take back. It usually doesn’t work that way.
So, I am going to consciously try, every day to be holy. And maybe, just maybe, one day I will feel that I’m there, and maybe twenty pounds lighter.
