Remember, O Thou Man: Senses, Priorities, and How Humans Struggle With Object Permanence

 

(Hello lovelies! I'm here linking up with The Grim Writer for her Remember, O Thou Man Lenten Blog Party!) 

Humans, I think, never quite get past the not-having-object permanence stage. I mean, obviously we do—babies develop object permanence (knowing that something still exists even when it’s hidden) at around 6-8 months old, apparently. I know that there is lunch waiting for me in my backpack even if I can’t see the lunch or even the backpack—and I’m hungry right now, so I’m thinking about that lunch in my backpack quite a bit at the moment.

But one of the things I’ve observed about myself over the last few years of being a college student and toggling back and forth across the United States is that my brain tends to place the most importance on what is right in front of me. It’s not that I don’t know that, say, my friends at school still exist while I’m at home, or that my home parish still exists when I’m at school. I do know that. But it’s a matter of priorities.

When I’m at home, things that are going on at home and at my home parish seem super important and lead me to make different decisions about the future than I do when I’m at school, at which point the things going on at Newman seem super important. At home, the demands of, say, my job at my home parish seem different than they do when I’m at college. I’m much more likely to, say, decide to stay longer at home in the summer in order to do just one more wedding or to go to a family event. When I’m at college, the demands of my friendships seem a lot more pressing than they do when I’m at home. I’m much more likely to, say, decide not to go home for spring break and instead go to Tennessee. (Both of those things are things that I have done, and in the grand scheme of things, I regret neither. But I’m interested in observing my decision-making process there.)

In some ways, this is healthy. If, when I was at college, I obsessed over home, my family, my home parish, and everyone that I know back at home, I wouldn’t ever have time to even do my homework, let alone cultivate friendships at Newman. If, when I was at home, I obsessed over Newman and was constantly on the phone with my friends there (all of them), my family would feel alienated and ignored.

It’s a balance.

And it is important to love the person in front of you. Who is my neighbour? It is the one who is in need when I am walking along the way, and find him beat up in a ditch, not the one who is 2000 miles away who I can’t do anything for. (Although, admittedly, there are many things you can do for someone who is 2000 miles away in this digital age, but you, I expect, know what I mean.)

But of course, the challenge of that is to not focus on what is in front of me to the detriment of every other part of my life. Because one of the things about my life right now is that it is by nature bifurcated. (Or currently, trifurcated. I don’t know if that’s a word.) But I am called to have an integrated life, and to be the same person throughout my life. To bring my life into a unity no matter where I am. So, if I’m viewing the world through my home-Newman bifocals, I can’t just look through one half of the glasses, which is the temptation of the priority shift that comes from dealing with what is right in front of you.

When I’m home, I can’t just not talk to my Newman friends for a month because I’m “focusing on my family”. While I’m here in England, I can’t just not do my remote volunteer job at Newman because it’s not as high on the list of things-my-brain-is-spending-a-lot-of-time-on. While I’m at Newman, I can’t just not talk to my family, or my friends back at home. That’s not healthy either.

Also, knowing this about myself, I have to be cognizant about the decisions that I’m making, especially if they’ll affect future-Sam-who-is-at-home (if I’m making them at Newman) or future-Sam-who-is-at-Newman (if I’m making them at home). Or both, if I’m making them from England. And that’s hard. That is really hard. It’s so easy to think that the priorities that I have at the moment are just my priorities and not recognize that priorities change based on who is right in front of me.

For instance, I've observed to myself that where I end up living after college may very well be more of a product of where I am (at home, or at college) when I make that decision, than of a fully logical thought process. That's not something I necessarily want to happen, but in order for it not to, I will need to put a lot of thought and prayer into the decision--possibly more than I think I need.

As that observation implies, sometimes, I slip up and don’t have the priorities balanced. Maybe I spend too much time on the phone with a friend; maybe I hop away from family dinner at home to text a friend. Maybe I go home a little too soon in December and miss something that’s important to one of my friends. It happens. And there’s nothing you can do but learn from it, pick yourself up, apologize, and keep going, as is the case for many things in life.

At this point you may be wondering “Sam, I will admit that this is an interesting reflection but what the heck does this have to do with Lent?”

Excellent question, my dear reader. Please allow me to explain.

If it’s the people and things that are in front of me the most that are my highest priorities at whatever stage I’m at—my friends & roles at Newman are my highest priority when I’m there, my family and friends at home are my highest priority when I’m there—then what does that mean for my ultimate priority?

Which is, obviously, (or at least it should be, even if it isn’t always) getting to heaven.

I.e. loving God with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength.

The fact that humans, even adult humans, have a hard time with object permanence means, as I’ve realized when thinking this over in the past couple of weeks, that it’s important to keep the things that are important to us front and centre in our lives.

Not just metaphorically. Also literally. Ideally, we have those things in front of us visibly. (But also auditorily, tangibly, and with all of the other sense—I don’t only see my friends and family, I also touch them and listen to them. But sensibly, is my point. Sense them.)

If God is going to be our number one priority, we need to sense Him and have Him in front of us always, so that we are always seeing (smelling, hearing, smelling, tasting) Him, so that He will then become our number one priority in life.

And this, my dear darling readers, is where we have Catholic religious practice to the rescue. In the Catholic Church, we believe that God has given us sacraments—physical ways in which He touches our lives. Signs that accomplish what they signify—i.e. baptism symbolizes washing, but also accomplishes the washing clean of our souls from sin. (Pretty wild, right? It’s neat.) In the sacraments, we hear Him, see Him, touch Him, taste Him, and smell Him. (Chrism—it smells SO good!)

But it’s not only enough to say “okay, well, I sense God on Sundays. I hear Him in the scriptures, I see Him, I touch Him, and I taste Him in the Eucharist. (And, sometimes, I smell Him, if there's a baptism.)”

That’s great. And it’s a good start. It’s what God asks of it—at least to sense Him on Sundays, to put Him in front of ourselves visibly and sensorially so that He will become our priority at least that much.

But it’s not enough.

And this, my dear darling readers, is where we have Catholic devotional practice to the rescue.

Daily prayer and daily Mass. It’s important. If we want God to be in front of us, for getting to Heaven to be our top priority, it’s not enough to only see God on Sundays. He needs to be in front of us every single day. And that means, at the very least, daily prayer. If you were married, would you only want to talk to your spouse once a week? Or a few times a week? No! You’d want to talk to them every single day. (If you are married, I’m really hoping you talk to your spouse more than once a week…) Christ is the Bridegroom and lover of all of our souls. Heaven is the eternal Wedding Feast of Christ and His Church! As such, we should be talking to God every single day. Sometimes that means daily Mass. Other times, like for me right now, that’s not feasible (because of a combination of geography and schedule), and so it means prayer wherever I am and in whatever I’m doing (ideally—obviously I’m not always great at this).

Of course, if we’re going to Daily Mass, we’re sensing God in that way, having Him in front of us that way. But if not (and honestly, even if so), we need other ways to help us sensibly relate to God on a daily basis, during our daily prayer. Because we need that daily contact with Him if we’re going to become saints and get to Heaven.

First of all, there is, of course, the one and only wonderful practice of reading the Bible (and/or hearing it proclaimed). God’s word, directly into our brains via our eyes. And honestly, I feel like reading has a bit of an auditory component to it, too. Am I the only one who hears what I’m reading in my head as I’m reading it? (It’s a bit of a strange thing—if I’m not concentrating on that, I don’t notice it, but if I am, I do.)

Second of all, though, Catholic tradition is chock full of sensible things that we can use in our daily lives to keep God at the front and centre. They’re called ‘sacramentals’, I believe because they’re meant to remind us of the sacraments (and possibly be avenues of grace? The exact definition eludes me).
Things we pray with, like the rosary, chaplets, crucifixes, candles, saint medals, Catholic art of various kinds, statues, (for some of us) veils, and so on.
Other things that are meant to draw us close to God as well, like holy water, and blessed salt.
These things are very often aids to prayer, things that we experience with more than one sense, and things that help us to keep God in the centre of our senses at home.

For instance, we hang Catholic art on the walls just like we’d hang pictures of loved ones—to remind us that we love them, and that they are priorities in our life! I currently have a bunch of pictures of family and friends arrayed on my desk in England, and every time I see one particular friend’s face, I’m like “I should text her!” And then I often do. Same with images of Jesus, Mary, and the saints. We see them, and we’re more likely to say a quick ‘hello!’ or be drawn towards prayer.

And this whole thing is like what I said about balancing priorities earlier—sometimes, we get in wrong. And then we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, go to Confession (if we’re Catholic), and try again. It’s a little different from my need to balance PNW priorities vs. Illinois priorities, because God is always supposed to be the first in our lives—but the principle is the same as with any other priority. If He is front and centre in your senses, He will hopefully be front and centre in your thoughts, and if He’s front and centre in your thoughts, He will ideally be front and centre in your priorities, and in your whole life.

And then, my dear reader, you become a saint. I’m not there yet, but I hope someday I will be.

What do you think? Do you also have areas where it's hard to balance your priorities because you have different things and people in front of you at different times?