The only thing

It struck me today as I thought about the phrase "vanity of vanities" about how much of life is actually worth something(very little, and I was spurred to this blog-thought because of Fr. Patricks Christmas address at the HROC site). I think about everything I have done, everything I have gained and the only thing that I feel is a truly creative, beautiful thing is my son. My wife and I have produced a beautiful little boy. How will I be able to communicate to him that nothing in the world(by world I mean, cars, houses, money, etc) really matters. I want him to know that his purpose as a human is to search for love, for life, for God and all those things converge.

I like my car, my house, my laptop, but they do very little to make me a better person. I do not love God more because of my car. I do not feel invigorated and alive because of my laptop. I do not feel complete and fulfilled because of my house. Those things satisfy a baser desire for comfort, for status, or in the vernacular -- bling. They are vanities in a world of vanities. My wife and my son are what I thank God for, they invigorate me, they make me feel loved and fulfilled. My friends complete that circle, my family makes me stronger. Every "thing" I have is just that, a thing and just as my body will some day be buried and decompose, so will all those things. I believe however my friendships, my love for my son and wife, my search and desire for God are eternal. Those relationships will reverberate through the people I meet and keep in contact with, I pray that I make a positive impact and that I will represent what it is to be human in a good way.

BTW, when I first read Ecclesiastes and saw the phrase "vanity of vanities" I read it as a superlative, that somehow it was the vainest of all vain things, but I see a different meaning now. Vanity of vanities can also be read as cherishing that which is vain, or taking vanity in vain things. I think both ideas are worth pursuing and perhaps the phrase was constructed with both meanings in mind.

Friday Nights

After my case was adjudicated in a juvenile hearing, I was sentenced to do community service. I did some of that service with the person whose house I broke into. I helped her at a soup kitchen in downtown Seattle. Most of the community service was done at KCC however. I was never an outgoing person and never really developed into one, so I didn't have a huge social life at the time. This community service arrangement at my church was very convenient since it meant that I could do the community service very quickly and for a place that I was invested in. At the time I used to clean and setup for a Friday night youth hangout at the church. I would vacuum, and stock the fridge and candy counter. I would put out the sign and basically get everything ready for what was at times 80 or 90 teenagers who would hang out in the basement of a house on church grounds. The purpose of the place was to give kids a place to be where there was adult supervision, fun stuff to do, and no drugs or alcohol. There were opportunities to talk about God and the night usually began with a prayer for the people that helped out. There wasn't a lot of pushing though. We weren't there to tell every teenager about how they needed Jesus or they would burn. For something like 2 years I helped run that hang out. Eventually attendance fizzled and I think they wanted to use the space for something else.

I thought about this today as I spoke to my friend Aaron. I met Aaron something like 9 or 10 years ago when I used to go a coffee house held at Holy Resurrection. I went there with Katrina and it was one of the first encounters I had with Orthodoxy. I remember encountering people that had clearly spent a lot of time thinking about what it meant to be Christian and I found that inviting. I wanted to learn more and it sparked my interest in this Ancient form of my faith. As I spoke with Aaron today I remembered helping setup or teardown some nights at Holy Resurrection's coffee house. Maybe it was just familiar for me to serve in that way. I kinda miss it and I feel a little out of place sometimes when I have nothing to do in a social setting. I went to the Christmas Coffee house held this year at Holy Resurrection. It was definitely cool, but I just felt old and out of place. I wanted to help setup or do something but I got there after most of the work was already done and there were plenty of people already doing stuff. There was also a significantly different tone to the purpose of the event. Maybe it was just that particular coffee house, but I remember the purpose of the old coffee houses were to open the church up to the community. There would be college students, drunks, random people passing by who would stop in, have a free cup of coffee. Some would ask questions, some would look around and leave. The Christmas coffee house seemed more like a performance designed for the OCF audience, not for anyone who wanted to stop by.