Kaukauna Catholic Parishes

Albert Einstein once said, “In the West, we have built this beautiful ship and it has all the comforts in it, but the one thing it does not have is a compass and that’s why it doesn’t know where it is going.”

This paradox of our times was propounded by the Dalai Lama when he said, “We have wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints; we have taller buildings, but shorter tempers. We spend money we haven’t earned on things we don’t need to impress people we don’t like. And it is phenomenal how the same technology that brings us close to those who are far away takes us far away from the people we are actually close to.  30 billion, “What’s up?” text messages are sent per day, but 48% of the people say they feel lonelier in       general.”

The paradox of our times is that we have more degrees but less sense. More knowledge but less judgment, more experts but less solutions. 

It was Martin Luther King who said, “The irony of our times is that we have guided missiles but misguided men.”

Have you ever found it perplexing that we’ve been all the way to the moon and back but we struggle to start a     conversation across the road or across the bus or train? 

Do we actually thrive off of this paradox? Is it that this paradox actually makes the media interesting? It’s what makes politics interesting; it’s what makes television interesting. Is this paradox actually what we feed off of and what we live off of and what we talk about and discuss in our circles? Doesn’t it seem that we’ve tried to clean the air but have polluted our souls? We’ve split the atom but not our prejudices. We’re aiming for higher incomes, but we have lower morals. 

So I’m hearing you ask, “How do we bring a change? How do we dissect this paradox that exists in our lives?” It starts by each of us pressing reset, taking a moment to become more conscious, taking a moment to become more aware, taking a moment to really reflect on the consequence of a misplaced word, of an unnecessary argument that we all know we didn’t need to have or to speak to someone just slightly differently, in a different tone, with a different perspective, just to really connect with people on a different level. 

We need to dig down into the ancient books of wisdom. We need to go back to understanding if there’s anything written in those pages of time that can actually reveal more knowledge and more wisdom of how we can transform our experience of life today; otherwise, this paradox means that, with every step forward, we take three backward. We challenge the paradox of our times with faith. It is in Discovering, Living and Sharing Jesus that we confront a world that is confused and lost in darkness. In faith, we share the reality of God that gives each human being a path that leads to the life God meant us to have.  Peace and joy.  

Fr. Don