The reality of God

By Mia Pohlman

The other day at Mass, the priest used a word that struck me: reality. He encouraged us to work towards the reality of God here on earth.

I am so often used to encountering a world that says God is not reality and living in contrast to this that I forget: the God who I live for, and all of his promises, are reality. They are true. I can live that way.

What we need, perhaps, is not always a defensive strategy against the world, but rather a removal of the world's blinders, revealing things for what they are. A return to truth, beauty and goodness.

Lies are not reality, and that, I believe, is why they make us so unhappy. We are created to experience reality; we have a bent towards what is real. When we find it, it fulfills us. When we dabble in un-reality -- those things that are not truth -- we can know it from the emptiness it provides.

Thomas Merton, in "New Seeds of Contemplation," calls sin "illusion," the opposite of reality. Because it does not fulfill, he writes, it leads to boredom and disillusionment.

He writes, "Evil is not a positive entity but the absence of a perfection that ought to be there. Sin as such is essentially boring because it is the lack of something that could appeal to our wills and our minds.

"What attracts men to evil acts is not the evil in them but the good that is there, seen under a false aspect and with a distorted perspective. The good seen from that angle is only the bait in a trap. When you reach out to take it, the trap is sprung and you are left with disgust, boredom -- and hatred. Sinners are people who hate everything, because their world is necessarily full of betrayal, full of illusion, full of deception."

He also writes that "noise, excitement and violence" are "the inevitable fruits of a life devoted to the love of values that do not exist."

I think about reality television shows that glamorize arguing, selfishness and using others. Fulfilled people don't try to make others' lives miserable; these are unhappy people. These are bored people. And, quite honestly, these are people who are being paid to do a job to sell us the idea that all of these things are reality. But, a tree is known by its fruits.

Love is reality. Not the cheap version of love that so much music or so many shows try to sell us, but real, deep, lasting love that is all-consuming and all-refining. Love that calls us out of ourselves to give more than we thought we had. Love that heals and binds up what is broken and brings good out of all circumstances. Love that is bringing all things back to itself, that forgives no matter what, that makes all things one. Our God is this love. God is reality.

Matthew 6:33 says, "Seek first the kingdom and its righteousness." It comes with a promise: "and all these things will be given you besides."

The earth is not our end. We are working towards a face-to-face reunion with God, with love himself. Let us not forget.