Too Much is Never Enough…

Not sure if you heard or not… but Colorado just had a bit of rain.  

I would know… here was the park 2 blocks from my house. 

Note the TOP of the Park Pavilion – dead center.

And, here, on the drive to rescue my kids from their school so they wouldn’t have to stay the night in another part of town.

Moments before we almost ran over a floating tire… stay classy, Denver.

And this… 

Um, yeah.

But that’s not how the morning started.  

The morning that the massive flooding began to take place, I happened to be at Mass with my children at their Catholic School.  My thoughts drifted to how much I loved rainy days and how much – Colorado, as a state in drought – needed that rain.  I felt hopeful, and cozy, and like I might just want to go back to bed when I got home.  

As Mass proceeded on, the rain picked up – louder than usual, drumming on the roof of the old church, and at times nearly drowning out the priest’s homily.  Struggling to hear every bit of the readings of the day, I was inspired by a few tidbits of wisdom from our beloved priest, which I will now summate in a seriously Cliff-Noted way:  

The things that are good for us are the things that make us feel better, whole, complete when we’ve used or completed them…

But the bad things always make us feel worse…

 Let us take this into consideration considering our recent flood.

Water:  Good in small doses, bad in large quantities in a small period of time, in a state where this isn’t usually an issue and poor city/rural planning leads to horrible circumstances.

 As the day began to wear on, reports of death, and suffering, and displacement flooded the airwaves, TV, news radio and social media networks.  Not only was the water overwhelming, but its destructive path became its consequence.

And isn’t that how all of our life is, really?  We want things, we desire things, we look to possess and consume things – and, at first, it seems innocent enough.  Maybe a workout here, a donut there, a drink after work, a casual relationship with someone we like.  A small trickle of desire.  And those things make us feel good.  And because we feel good, we want more of those things.  And because we have more, we desire to consume even more.  

And before we know it, we turn around, and there is a raging river of destruction.  

We become fitness-obsessed, injuring our bodies.  We overeat, becoming unhealthy and needing medical intervention.  We drink to excess, injuring ourselves and those around us.  We give our bodies away to people, and take something from them in return.  The examples are endless.  And when all is said and done… we feel worse.

Like the balance of nature, what we need is balance.  And balance requires wisdom.  Wisdom of what is good for us in moderation – or in more dire circumstances – what we need to give up completely.  

You know, the only thing we can never have too much of is love.  Love of God, love of neighbor, love of family and – rightly so – love of self.  And the consequence to allowing that kind of love rule our lives, is pure unadulterated joy.  

Let that flood your desires, your wants, your soul… preparing your whole self for all the good things coming…

“Three things are necessary for the salvation of man: to know what he ought to believe; to know what he ought to desire; and to know what he ought to do.” St Thomas Aquinas