Develop Your Interior Life First
I just heard an advertisement for the People Magazine’s Best of 2008 issue that contains things like the top 25 celebrity quotes of the year and a whole bunch of other inane listings. It just made me consider how much our society seems obsessed with what other people are doing, saying, thinking or feeling. Then when I was working out at the YMCA I could see a certain cable news channel group of anchors sitting on a couch pontificating about their thoughts on “news” items. That brought up the same thoughts I’d had earlier. Our new information age seems to be focused on what everyone is doing (activities) and not much on how everyone is drawing closer to God on a personal level.
How about looking inside ourselves to figure out what we’re feeling and why and by the way, what about our relationship with God?
My latest spiritual reading is “Soul of the Apostolate” by Jean-Baptiste Chautard. I’m finding it a great read since it really helps you understand the absolute necessity of a well developed interior life. All the activity we participate in, including good works, can actually become a danger to our salvation if we don’t first devote time and attention to our interior life.
Somehow I think we’d all care less about what others do if we spent more time contemplating what we’re doing first.