New Year Revision

We have been doing an experiment for the last half of the year, regarding our family and our environment, and it is time now to observe the results of the experiment.

We are living in town, (not yet in our dream homestead!) amidst neigbors of varied beliefs and cultural habits, and since last June we have been open to them and their lifestyles, because it did not seem right to protect me from people that were different, because ultimately we are all sinners, and why one sinner would be more rightly held than the others?

I have seen recently a video about sexual sin and homosexuality that while opposing homosexual marriage firmly, it also puts down the barriers between THEM and US, because we are all guilty of some sort of sin.

I believed that love for our neighbor should be strong to go over the barriers of difference in religious and cultural beliefs, and that the exercise of this duty of love, which starts with our spouse and goes towards brothers and sisters in Christ, spills out to all the nations, and eventually we would carry the burdens of everybody we encounter with christian joy.

Now, while still holding the above as true, I also have to recognize that the effects of being involved with the larger community has had an impact in our lifes, and not just positive.

We had noticed an increase in disrespect from our children, in general, and also in particular aspects like they cannot sit at the regular 50 minutes Mass without complaining, while before they were contentedly sitting through the Traditional Mass for hour and a half. The unity of husband and wife in marriage, well, is more separated than united, as we feel stranged from each other and carry resentments towards each other. My working for outside endevours, as much worthy as they seem to me, have left the house in disorder, I cannot tend to the laundry anymore, with clothes spilling all over the room, my meals are far from thoughtful, many  times burnt,  and I start to also resent my home because all the disorder in it. It seems that if we continue in this direction we may end up working in jobs outside the home, children in public school and getting a divorce!

Now why this is so, if our values did not change? I think there are mysterious ways that things happen, and eventhough i cannot know the whys, it is obvious to me that the exposure to the larger community erodes the beliefs one holds inwardly, and perhaps unconsciously, it starts to change them until it might be to late to go back. Romans 1 and 2 comes to mind as a possible explanation of this shift in thought patterns, and also the verses were we are admonished to be among believers, comparing the light with the darkness. Frodo, eventhough he had a lot of purity in his heart, was changed by the ring.

So, unless we acquire a pure heart unable to be corrupted, I have to admit that it is not such great idea to be open to the large currents of thoughts, nay the people that sustain them, and that it is of utmost importance to be in the company of believers to feed each other from the Water of Life. Not for nothing did the old saying say: "Divide and Conquer". We shall be united, in our marriages, in our congregations, in our love for God.

So for this New Year, we are putting our house for sale again, and trusting God to lead us to homesteading, to do His Work amidst his children.