What do you want?
Thoughts on quotes from "Finding God in All Things," an episode on "On Being."
James Martin: I turned on the TV and saw a documentary about Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk, who I'd never heard of. And, the documentary was so compelling that it prompted me to go out and read his book, The Seven Storey Mountain, which, to coin a phrase, changed my life.
Krista Tippet and James Martin (I feel like I need to call Krista Tippet "Krista" but it feels kind of strange to call James Martin "James." Is it because he's a priest? A man? Or just because I feel like I know Krista and have heard so many people on the show call her Krista, and I don't feel that way about James Martin?) talk quite a while about Thomas Merton. Have you ever heard of Thomas Mertin? His name sounded familiar to me, but I did not know anything about him until hearing this podcast. I'm thinking I'll read No Man is an Island.
They quote this from that book:
“Why do we spend our lives striving to be something that we would never want to be? If only we knew what we wanted. Why do we waste our time doing things which, if we only stopped to think about them, are just the opposite of what we were made for?”
Fr. Martin goes on to say, "And, you know, Jesus asks people that. What do you want? Kind of understanding your desires."
What is your answer to "What do you want?" Myself, I'm not sure. I should know what I want, right? I have some thoughts on it. I want to be an image of God. I want to reflect his love in everything I do. I want to live a life so that, when I meet God, he can say, "Well done, good and faithful servant." Is that enough? Is that the whole answer? Those thoughts seem like some answers to the question, What do I want to be? How about, What do I want to DO? Then I start thinking about my job. But there's a lot more I do than my job. What things do I do in order to reflect God's love?
Fr. Martin says Jesus asks, "What do you want?" My first thought as to when Jesus asks that is when he performs miracles. He asks some version of what each person wants, and their answer is some kind of cure - to walk, to see, to be rid of this disease I've had for years, for you to bring my brother/child back to life, and so on. What if Jesus asked me, "Mavis, what do you want?" What if he asked you?