Wednesday, June 20, 2018

How is life worth living? "How could this happen, and how could I prevent it from happening again?

Andrew jokes in his opening monologue on separation of children from their parents, "Planned Parenthood weighed in with a tweet saying that children should not be separated from their parents at the border but should instead be pumped full of poison and then have their arms and legs ripped off before their body parts are sold for cash."

Barack Obama is being exposed for his failure to push for legislation to prevent immigrant children from being separated from their parents. Which crying children should we be helping? American children in Chicago where gun violence is rampant, or St. Louis, where parents are crack-addicted, or non-American children who are being separated from their parents (or alleged parents) at the border?

Andrew answers questions from listeners. One person told Andrew his girlfriend had gotten pregnant by him twice and gotten abortions. The first time she did not tell him about the abortion but the second pregnancy was also ended in abortion and that time she told him. Andrew thought of two wrong ways the writer could handle this problem. The first would be that he could wallow in guilt until he is paralyzed and develops a self-righteous feeling of goodness just from feeling bad! The other is having no guilt and doing nothing. He could also take a close look at his life and ask, "How could this happen, and how could I prevent it from happening again?

Another writer asks, "Why is life worth living?" Andrew suggested that he change that to "How is life worth living?" If you are paying attention to the person you are in love with, you pay attention to life! Paying attention is a really difficult thing. Everything that is worthwhile about life takes place inside you. Everything that is life takes place outside you. The blue sky takes place outside you, but the experience of joy you get from the blue sky takes place inside you. You start to think about the existence of God and God's creation. Paying attention and love are very closely related. When you live life fully awake and alert, you are full of joy and vitality. Andrew believes that is what the gospels are about. What keeps you from paying attention? Fear, anxiety, worry. Jesus said let not your heart be troubled; neither let it be afraid.

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