Citizen Columns

Citizen Columns >> Answer (February 10th, 2007)

Question

If closeness to God is so wonderful, why does goodness seem so dull?

Answer

You are confusing closeness to God and goodness. Just keeping the rules is not the path to closeness with God. In fact, those who are closest to God often have had moments of spectacular "badness" first. When this comes crashing down around them, they experience God in a way that that bears no resemblance to the pale moralism that is often mistaken for Christian faith. Jesus was drawn to sinners, not to moralists. And sinners were also drawn to him because they felt not an ounce of pious judgment from him. The life with God is not about conventional morality.

And yet, is there any accomplishment that does not require a certain amount of boring practice? You can't get a "runner's high" without long hours of dull running first. If you want to be healthy you may need to have a dull detox from foods you like before you feel the good effects. So there are times of dull routine in praying, serving others, fasting, and going to church. But there are also glimpses of joy. There are moments when you feel, "yes, this is where I find true life". There are dull aspects, but they lead somewhere, even beyond the grave. Can the same be said of the pleasures that usually pass for fun?

Many of us need to find out for ourselves just how empty a life of "fun" can be before we can discover the true joy of life with God. A monk in Egypt had been living in a desert monastery for some time and was finding his life dull. Prayer, fasting, long services, silence, manual labor. Disillusioned, he left, went into the big city of Alexandria and gave himself up to all the drinking and debauchery he had been missing. But it didn't take long for him to feel the emptiness of all this and return to the life he had abandoned. The moral of the story? What prayer and fasting could not accomplish, fornication did.

Father John Jillions