Callahan: Bigger, faster and stronger will not make us happy
Last Updated on 12/1/2008
Published on 8/27/2008
By Tim Callahan
After 20 years in the newspaper business, I found something was missing. While satisfying, work didn't fill a hole in my soul. I was busy, busy, busy, but that only kept the mind occupied until night. Then, I read and read, but there was still time to think. If work and exercise and reading didn't fulfill me, what would?
Oh, I knew the answer. I just couldn't wrap my rational mind around it. God was the ultimate solution, but He seemed distant. Having just been married, my new life and wife were awesome, but there was still that hole.
So, with my wife's blessing, I went to seminary in Denver. God would become closer by studying Him, getting to know Him. I fancied myself as an emerging Cal Thomas, using biblical truth in columns to reach the masses. But after two years, I decided I think they think too much and didn't feel that closeness I was looking for. Studying God was not relating to Him.
Almost 10 years later, the hole is not so big. Church friends and family have shown me Christ in the flesh and reading the Bible and prayer have brought me closer. But I am only human, and busyness, work and peer pressure rear their ugly heads and tug me away.
I think that is a dilemma many people face. While television and the media tell us stepping on people to get to the top, sex, owning the ideal home and money are the path to happiness in this brave new world, the public -- deep down -- knows better. A recent Barna Group survey showed people's ideal life and future involved none of the above. There were six specific conditions that at least three-quarters of all adults identified as being very important elements in their ideal life. In order, they were: good physical health, living with a high degree of integrity, having one marriage partner for life; having a clear purpose for living; having a close relationship to God; and having, close personal friendships.
I would venture to say that five and six, God and close friends, make the ideal life. At my funeral, friends are not going to reminisce about stories I wrote, where I lived or how much money I made, but about me as a person.
After seminary, I got my master's degree in journalism from a Christian graduate school. My mentor and professor, Dr. Douglas J. Tarpley, gave me an exit talk that I still remember: "Tim, after 50 years on this planet, all the accomplishments in the world don't satisfy me. When I'm gone, my legacy will be my friends and family and how I related to God."
Now hearing and doing are not the same thing. I know he's right, but as 17th-century French philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote in his "Pensées," distractions are the biggest enemy to our souls. Work, television, exercise, writing a book -- they are not bad things. But if I use them to keep me from thinking about how I might be failing my God and my friends and family, or to avoid dealing with them, then I am failing; I am slipping back into that hole.
It was heartening to read the survey results and realize that there are many people in my boat. People who want more from life. People who don't buy all the media hype that bigger, faster and stronger will make us happy. Having a high-paying job was 14th on the list; owing a large home 15th; and achieving fame was 17th.
But knowing and doing are tough in a world that says -- and acts -- otherwise.
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Tim Callahan is an author and freelance writer from Pawleys Island who has covered the Murrells Inlet community for several years.
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The right-wing zealots strike again. Posted by Joe on 9/1/2008
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