Wazzup my fellow readers?!?! Thanks for making it back to my
page, I know it’s been a little while! So today was the kickoff for Fortnight
for Freedom, a religious freedom campaign being sponsored by the USCCB (U.S.
Conference of Catholic Bishops) and it runs until the 4th of July,
conveniently the day America won its freedom from the bloody Brits (no
offense)!
WARNING: I am now taking my soapbox for the
next few sentences, so get OVER it! When the constitution was written by the
founding fathers, as I understand it, and correct me if I’m wrong (but I expect
crickets), they specifically had in mind a country that was free from the
tyranny of the government they had just
escaped and so wrote the constitution in a way that would limit the power and
reach of the government into society. Although radical reformations occurring
centuries earlier in the Church deeply damaged the practice of organized
religion, and ultimately the view of the Church as the center and source of
society, deep religious roots continued to dictate the behavior of these newly
formed “Americans” leading to a unique society of individualists who still
regarded God as the author of authority and morality. This rejection of the
church, however, would prove to undermine the founding fathers’ efforts to
limit the power of government. For you see God made the human person in a way
that desires to be led, to be part of something bigger than itself, a.k.a. the
CHURCH, but with this radical individualistic view on religion, it didn’t allow
for the soul’s desires to be met. With the Church out of the picture and the
vision of personal religion slowly taking over, society was left searching for
and, to their own free-thinking demise, discovering a common judge of authority
and “morality” rising from the ashes poured out of the incensors of the
puritans who rejected the belief of the Church as the heraldry of all things
moral: this judge being the American government.
And so ensued a shift in American thought, rather than of
limiting government, putting faith in
the government to restore a cohesive sense of authority. The irony is that
their precious freedom they won from Britian was sacrificed to this government
“God” (strikingly like the Israelites who after seeing the other nations’ kings,
began desiring a king of their own) to the point that we sadly find today the
need for a “Fortnight for Freedom”, a reclaiming of God as the sole true source
of freedom and morality that doesn’t lead to enslavement. So if you are reading
this right now, know this: I’m spending the next two weeks fasting and going
out of my way to act for religious freedom, especially with the intention for
an end to abortion. Whether you’re Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Jewish,
Muslim, Pagan, Agnostic, or what have you, you should care about this movement!
JOIN ME in this 2 week fast to pray for a change in America, a change that
would take away authority given to the government by the government that it
never deserved to have. A change to freely live out our faith in the public
square. I’d love to hear your experiences at the end of all this!
Fresh Off the
Reservation:
Comin’ at my fellow pharmacy friends for this one, it’s time
to get real with ya! I love working in a pharmacy setting, I love using
clinical knowledge every day to solve problems, I love the responsibility I
have with a patient’s well-being, I love interacting with patients and forming
relationships with them, but I have to admit, my maturity in why I should love being a pharmacist hasn’t
quite blossomed yet. What do I mean? Well, why do most people say they decided
to go into a medical profession? To help people.
I don’t know about
you, but for me being a pharmacy student there are PLENTY of things that
distract me from having this reasoning behind my actions. Just to name a few;
ambition of a successful career, accolades from my peers, being respected by
patients as successful and intelligent (especially as a student all too often receiving
the “Good for you” praise from a middle-age mom can get you on the pride train
pretty easily), possessing vast amounts of knowledge. Not a one of these things
are bad in and of themselves, but when they are a priority and the desire to
care for that person you are giving a medication to fades away, you’re not
being a very good pharmacist. I’m saying this because I’m all to guilty of
looking at it from a perspective of “what’s in it for me” and working out here
in Towaoc, Colorado, where honestly the patients here couldn’t give two shits,
count ‘em, TWO, about your educational background and achievements, it’s showed
me that the only thing that really matters to being a pharmacist is how well
you care for each patient. A lot of the natives on the reservation I’m working with
aren’t friendly and would rather not chat about life when they come to the
counter and I’ve quickly realized if I don’t come to work with the pure
intention and goal to care for people, I’m going to lose heart pretty quickly.
So for all of my peeps who are close to graduation or have
recently graduated, I encourage you to think long and hard on what your
motivation for being a pharmacist is. I know I need to if I’m ever going to be
a good pharmacist. It’s so easy going through school to put ourselves in this
sort-of bubble not in touch with reality and look at the patient as a project
rather than as a person and if we continue to do that, we’re going to be burned
out real quick when the applause from our peers stops. Two things to keep in
mind: 1) Your reason for making it this far is not entirely your doing, so
don’t act like it is. 2) You are, first and foremost, a person, then a
pharmacist, don’t ignore the person-side (personal side) of you.
A Voice Crying Out In the Desert:
St. JoseMaría Escrivá continues to blow my mind with his
writings in “The Way” and has been a huge help to me while out here in Colorado
on my own. He doesn’t mince words, but cuts straight to the heart of what it
means to be a man and I encourage anyone who’s like me and searching for a
starting place in how to build your character to read this book. This week two
excerpts hit me pretty hard and I’d like to share them with you:
#17.
Don’t succumb to that disease of character whose symptoms are a general lack of
seriousness, unsteadiness
in action and speech, foolishness- in a word, frivolity. And that frivolity, mind you, which makes your plans
so void- “so filled with emptiness”- will make of you a lifeless and useless dummy, unless you react in time-not tomorrow,
but now!
#18.
You go on being worldly, frivolous and gitty because you are a coward. What is
it, if not cowardice, to refuse to
face yourself.
When I think about this character of “frivolity” that
Escrivá talks about, I think of a person with little self-confidence,
flightiness, fearing vulnerability, a character lacking manliness. Man was
created for great love, commitment, the power to impact his surroundings and
inspire change, and to defend the weak and that requires being constant in
one’s actions and beliefs. Someone who lacks the courage to be a man also lacks
the courage to see their flaws.
I think about 2 carpenters hired to fix a wall filled with
holes and cracks. One carpenter starts by slapping putty over the holes for an
easy fix but it never dries and the putty just sinks into the hole making the
wall look worse. The other carpenter takes the time to fit the hole with a
sheet rock patch supported by a wood backing and finishes the job with putty to
seamlessly integrate the patchwork. It takes more time and effort but by the
end of the job, it’s unnoticeable and the wall is sturdy enough to hang
pictures. Men, we have to be like the second carpenter, when we see flaws in
our character, we can’t ignore it because it would be uncomfortable to face
like the first carpenter who proposes a quick fix to the holes in the wall. We
have to get in there, build up our character where it’s lacking, then move on
to the next hole to fill it with
virtue. The final result is a man who can bear much more of life just like a
wall that can hold more pictures. Don’t “refuse to face yourself”. Don’t be
afraid of the work, although it’s not glamorous and requires the sting of
humility at times, in the end you will have built yourself up for a great
purpose. The man who ignores his flaws will eventually crumble because of all
the holes in his wall and will be, “a lifeless and useless dummy” and if we are
like that, what good are we to God, men?! Esto Vir (be a man)!!!
God bless.
