I don't know if it's the fact that I'm generally a geek for astronomy and space, or that the day before my fiancee had treated me to an afternoon at the Adler Planetarium, but I immediately thought of my old friend, the lunar phases.
You see, when you look up at the sky and see the moon, most of the time, you rarely see the whole thing. You'll catch a sliver, maybe a half (actually called quarter moon), or maybe a bigger chunk. But when you see the moon, at whatever proportion, how do you know if it's getting bigger or smaller?
This moment for me was a reinforcement of the power of optimism and the importance of trying to see things from the right perspective. From my view, if the half-circle host was the moon, it'd be getting smaller, on its way to new moon, which is invisible to the naked eye; from his view, it'd be getting bigger, on its way to full moon, the brightest, most visible stage.
Sometimes we can get distracted from the good around us, in our lives, in our friends and family. We care less about what we have and what's going well; instead, we look for and focus on the things going wrong, the things we don't have, the things that could be going better.
One of the biggest changes in my life from this year to last is time. Last year, I worked a great job with plenty of after-hours demands - retreats, coaching (totally elective/optional), and general hangouts at work - but then I simply made the 8-minute drive to my apartment complex, complete with a nice apartment, pool/hottub a 1-minute walk away, and full weight room for my regular use. My "disposable" time was very much flexible toward exercise, reading, guitar-playing, Netflix-watching, and more.
This year, the work demands persist similarly, but now I make a 28-mile commute that piles up to over an hour's drive coming home. I'm a part-time graduate student, which requires going in for class about one night a week and keeping up with reading and papers. Now, I'm not long-distance with my fiancee, so we get to see each other most days rather than boxing Skype time into our days.
The only frustration I entertain is that for my commute, because its only saving grace to me is that it gets me to the job I think I'm called to work right now. I try to redeem it with phone calls to friends, but that only works on later drives home. Even as the commute drains my energy, even as homework looms when I'm tired and want to unwind, even as I decide I need to give up coaching for this part of my life, I fight back the temptations to be disappointed with my time.
Other than that, I regularly re-confront the reality that these are all good things. It's good to live 2 blocks from my fiancee rather than 2,000 miles. It's good to have a scholarship for graduate school to continue my formation and make me a better minister. It's good to have a job, period, let alone a job in which I have a relatively blank check to create Campus Ministry from the ground up. The commute can cramp my style, and the constraints of my current life my keep me away from coaching.
But things are pretty damn good! It's an invitation to be conscious and intentional about my time. It's a challenge to be patient and humble. And it's up to me to keep a steady rhythm of prayer and sacraments to keep that current flowing.
The moon in the sky is only visible to us in as much as it is reflecting the light of the sun based on its position relative to earth. When you look at the moon, if the light is on the left (shadow on the right), then it is waning, or shrinking; if the light is on the right (shadow on the left), then it is waxing, or growing. The moon has no light of its own but works to reflect the light of something greater.
From my priest's point of view, the host-as-the-moon was waxing. From where I sat, it was waning. From the side transepts, they may not have seen much at all. It's all a matter of perspective. God is present, but our viewpoints and the sight lines we create, or neglect to create, can help or hurt us in seeing His presence.
As my fiancee and I left Mass, I saw an old friend just outside the door who lived nearby but I failed to reconnect with in my year in Chicago so far. It was utterly delightful to see her again and trade numbers so we can catch up for real. And as we chatted, another friend from college tapped me on the shoulder to say hello and congratulate us on our engagement. A simple evening of Mass "waxed" the Body of Christ last night, not just in my heart through Word and Sacrament, but through loving encounters with old friends.
Is shadow growing more and more to overtake the Light in your life? Is the Light in your life waning or waxing? What phase is the brightness of Christ taking in your life right now?
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