Affluenza breeds indifference to God

By Mary Regina Morrell
©Catholic Online 2005

"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference." Elie Wiesel

______________________

It is, perhaps, a reflection on life in this day and age that so many faith lessons become apparent to me in my visits to the supermarket.

On one trip I noticed a middle-aged father with two youngsters in tow walking at a good clip up and down the aisles in search of something. With their short little legs the children were having trouble keeping up. The youngest was carrying an open bag of candy which he had managed to wrangle from his father by a temper tantrum a few aisles before. As he ran to keep up with his Dad he tripped over a display in the aisle and his candy flew in every direction. Needless to say the child was distraught over the loss and began screaming - to the father's great dismay.

A large hand reached down to retrieve the small body from the floor and a father's voice gruffly shouted, "Leave the @#&* candy where it is! You can get another bag!"

Many lessons were learned in that moment, among them, "There's always more where that came from."

From toys to bikes, clothes, cameras, cars or cell phones, when they are lost or broken or simply tired of, parents are often all too quick to replace whatever their child wants.

Why, we should then ask ourselves, do we expect our children to value what they have when everything is replaceable, almost on demand?

It is said that today's children suffer from a disease named "affluenza" - a disease of plenty that mars the heart and soul with indifference to the value of what they have.

It would seem, as adults, we are often afflicted with the same disease, not only materialistically but spiritually as well. We have been endowed with so many good gifts from a God who loves without measure that we are inclined to take these gifts for granted. In a similar way, we take God's love for granted, treating it with the same indifference our children often exhibit toward their belongings.

Such indifference, however, is an impediment to both our emotional and spiritual growth. A small, but meaningful prayer book based on the spiritual classic The Cloud of Unknowing, emphasizes this truth, encouraging the faithful to trust in God's forgiveness and "put behind me, in a cloud of forgetting, every trace of indifference to the love you have this day offered me."

A secular author who had spent some time in prison writes of the same need to be mindful of the gift of love:

"It will sound strange that dry bread could possibly be a delicacy to any one. To me it is so much so that at the close of each meal I carefully eat whatever crumbs may be left on my tin plate, or have fallen on the rough towel that one uses as a cloth so as not to soil one's table; and I do so not from hunger . . . but simply in order that nothing should be wasted of what is given to me. So one should look on love."

The love of Christ was not a love that spoiled his followers -- such an understanding of love is mistaken and detrimental to any relationship which is founded upon it. Christ's love was a love that recognized and affirmed each person's dignity, each person's right to their God-given gift of free will. It was -- it is -- a love that challenges us as beloved to recognize that all gifts come from a God who loves us and exhorts us to respond with a love that is self-sacrificing, as was Jesus' love for us.

If we look carefully at Jesus' life and death we may see that it wasn't only hate or ignorance or pride that killed him.

Indifference to God's love was one of the nails that secured his blessed body to the cross.

Contact

Diocese of Metuchen
http://www.diometuchen.org NJ, US
Mary Regina Morrell - Associate Director, Office of Religious Educationp, 732 562.1990

Email

mreginam@aol.com

Keywords

affluenza, indifference, love, God

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