By Fr. Eugene Hemrick
Yeshua Fellow
In Italian we have the word ubriaco, in Spanish loco and in German Verruckt.
Idiomatically they translate the craziness we are hearing about today’s dysfunctionality.
It is difficult to remain psychologically balanced when brutal violence is erupting in our backyard, when disunity outweighs the desire for unity, when dishonesty becomes taken for granted, when irrationality is replacing levelheadedness, when constructive protests are disrupted by destructive protests and when religion is misrepresented rather than reverenced.
How then can we live sanely in an ubriaco, loco, Verruckt atmosphere?
A blessing
We are blessed with God-given intelligence and a magnificent mind for practicing it. We are also blessed with the gift of God-given strength for combating foes.
These are not only gifts but responsibilities. Aidos in Greek means a sense of duty, which the Greeks considered a supreme virtue. To avoid craziness, it implies fulfilling the duty of being a critical thinker.
Preventing social media from doing our thinking is one way to empower our intelligence. Some social media observers are conscientious while others debase the standards of thoughtfulness.
A sense of duty means taking matters into our own hands by taking control over our thinking.
Contemplation
Equally imperative is contemplation and using its gazing powers to learn the essence of the truth. One way to avoid craziness is combating it with silent, in-depth thinking -- enlisting our minds to penetrate and bring out into the open today’s madness, stupidity, and folly, to clear our mind from clutter in order to foster straight thinking.
Equally important is to take the temperature of negative influences besieging our emotions -- feelings like revengefulness, disgust, despair, frustration and the desire to retreat from the fray and bury our head in the sand.
Meditation
Meditation is imperative for combating disorder, even though it can be difficult to practice because we live in a hyper-stimulated environment that minimizes taking time out, driving us to be on the go always.
Meditation does not imply going to a monastery in which praying is done in silence throughout the day. It means carving out a quiet sacred space, be it in our homes, the restful outdoors or by visiting a church to utilize the stillness needed to clearly think.
A principle of asceticism states we must conquer ourselves first before conquering anything else. It is time to muster God’s gift of strength of conviction to make this happen.
We have the tools to maintain sanity. We just need to use them.