Seek, and ye shall find

"As far back as I can remember I asked questions about 'life' - why we're here and where we're going. [snip] [God] put us here to ask, to try to find out the best way possible to live with our neighbors. Of course, you can go through a life not asking, and that's the tragedy: so many lives lived in moral blindness."
Dorothy Day, A Radical Devotion, pgs 23-24

I've been wondering a lot lately why some people don't seem to question anything. They coast through life, engaging in the status quo never stepping outside the norm because "that's just how it is" and never wondering why it is. I've always been a thinker. Questions were the first things out of my mouth. I wanted to understand everything and ponder their meanings, whether it be from a child's perspective, the all knowing teenage mind or from my current lowly standpoint. I can remember trying to argue points with my father because I had just learned the *truth* on MTV or the latest issue of Mother Jones. I can write off my blunders now as youthful brashness or rebellion, but yet I think of those around me who still lap up what the media and society puts out for them the way a dog happily licks up antifreeze, unaware of the deadly consequences of such a sweet elixir. How many voters never get beyond the sound bites on CNN or MSNBC in selecting their candidate? And in the same vein, how many people slave away for a corporate overseer 40 or more hours a week because that's what they've been conditioned to believe is the American dream? Working for yourself and being self reliant is a foolish dream; how can you afford a flat screen and two new SUVs with out the glamorous job that keeps you from your family 5 days a week? Such folk would rather think inside the box because outside those four safe corners is uncertainty. I believe most of society would prefer to have their information fed to them and have all the thinking done for them, it's easier and usually makes us feel good about ourselves. When we start thinking about things around us and why they are the way they are, our thoughts tend to turn to God and our purpose here. And if you spend any amount of time studying and really contemplating God's plan for us, you'd realize how far off the mark society and mainstream media is and you'd have to reexamine everything in your life. Whoa Nelly! Why not stop right there and just pick up the latest paperback self-help book on the NY Times bestseller list and reaffirm your self esteem. Unfortunately, there is only one book that God expects us to pick up and it's not a popular selection for most liberals. People who allow themselves to be catechized by society without taking charge for their own, and their family's, spiritual formation will follow the status quo straight into an unpleasant eternity. It's a basic Baltimore Catechism lesson; to gain the happiness of heaven, we must know, love and serve God in this world. *Know* is the key word here. You cannot know God if you live solely amongst men and earthly desires. We were given higher intelligence to aspire to higher things. If you haven't, question things around you. Why do you do what you do every day? Do you enjoy it? Is it getting you closer to your heavenly reward? Do you know what will? There are answers to life's questions. Stop keeping up with the Jones and start setting some new Christ centered priorities.

"Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you" Mathew 7:7