UP

In my mind today I am thinking about up.  Yes front row I know that that is just a preposition  or a direction but that is exactly what I am thinking about the word up.  I also remember the rule never to end a sentence with a preposition.  I do not want to discuss the grammatical rules of English today. I want to talk about the word up and how it has really been in the middle of my thoughts lately.

God is good all of the time and I can’t remember God ever for building something downwards. We mere humans either. Why up and not down?  Think about it. 

Today our world is so busy building things up like technology and material wealth. We build-up science as the ultimate answer to save us from death or an untimely death. We build-up governments. Our governments are supposed to protect their constituents. It is supposed to build them up and not down.  Front row you are going to love this lesson. Who gives these liberties? Do our governments give us liberties? 

Look around you. In this little city where I live we are building things up everywhere. There are new churches being built. There are new banks being built. There are new shopping centers being built. Progress. Our little city is growing. After the pandemic, the people of my little town have awakened to so much  building up of everything around us except our attendees back to church.  I hear the back row starting to moan. 

The pandemic tore us down. It isolated us.  It changed our habits. It tricked us.  It made us think that this life is so precious that we have to do whatever we can to save it. We all lost so many precious family members and friends. They left this Earthly life. Why are we so easily discouraged?  We are so easily led down that road to perdition.  It is a super highway.  

We are just mere humans. We are easily confused and divided.  My favorite subject to teach was always history. I always told my students we need to know our history.  The history of civilization. The history of being a human. It is not always a beautiful picture. Our road to becoming an independent country was built with the precious blood of fathers and sons. They died so we could build-up something great in the eyes of the world under the name of God.  Yes front row I do hear you.  We are not a theocracy. I totally understand that but I also hear the words of Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”  The word creator changes everything. 

This is the point I am trying to get across to you students. Who gives us all of these rights? All of these human rights that we enjoy right here and the good old USA are given to us in the Bill of Rights. Right? They are given to us by God, the creator. Why is this so important?  There is no bill of sale. They cannot be taken from us. If we take our principles from God, we are able to create something good for all.  What are we building up today? Are we building up avarice and ignorance?  Are we learning from our history or are we trying to tear it down and rewrite it? Are we building our own narrative because we worship new gods?  This is your homework for the holidays while you feast on turkey. Be honest with yourself and ask what you are building up in your life?  What are you trying to tear down and why? 

The world does have order. It has a natural order. I believe it was created by God. Our God is a God of order. There is a morality that is driven by goodness. There is an eternal city that is also orderly. The road to it is very narrow. There is another city that is very disorderly. The road to it is very wide. This city is governed by man and has only chaos. It is created by a god of destruction. This city will end and not last for an eternity. This city is something my son and I call the clown world.   Everything is the opposite: Evil is good; good is evil. It is the place where a human can be god of his Earthly life. Students you have a lot of critical thinking to do during your break. 

I know there are so many of us that believe in a supreme God-man-Holy Spirit.  We want to work with God’s creation not to destroy it.  We want our lives to be measured by the good we do not the gold we acquire. We need to build each other up. We may not meet in the pews but we can meet on our knees. Pray. Yes, it is the most important homework I have ever given.

Sarah Anderson Alley 

Sal the Build-up Gal

Quotes of the Day by Venerable Fulton Sheen 

If you don’t behave as you believe, you will end by believing as you behave.

When a man loves a woman, he has to become worthy of her. The higher her virtue, the more noble her character, the more devoted she is to truth, justice, goodness, the more a man has to aspire to be worthy of her. The history of civilization could actually be written in terms of the level of its women.

There are not one hundred people in the United States who hate The Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they wrongly perceive the Catholic Church to be.

You must remember to love people and use things, rather than to love things and use people.

America, it is said, is suffering from intolerance — it is not. It is suffering from tolerance. Tolerance of right and wrong, truth and error, virtue and evil, Christ and chaos. Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded.

The refusal to take sides on great moral issues is itself a decision. It is a silent acquiescence to evil. The Tragedy of our time is that those who still believe in honesty lack fire and conviction, while those who believe in dishonesty are full of passionate conviction.

Never forget that there are only two philosophies to rule your life: the one of the cross, which starts with the fast and ends with the feast. The other of Satan, which starts with the feast and ends with the headache.