My American Dream

“ This is my American dream, I want to live and die for bigger things.”- John Foreman

America has become a shell of its former self, one could attribute numerous causes, but I personally believe there is a singular reason. We have forgotten how to love one another. Christians have entered a sort of capitalist stasis. The decadence and glamor of our society has turned us into consumer preachers, rather than carriers of the cross. We moralize about meaningless things but pass on good works and servanthood. Ever since Martin Luther’s Reformation, we have continually forsaken works for faith, which has left our ministry stale and wanting. The “We” I’m referring to is the American Christian, or Western Christian if you will. We are actively spinning out in circles morally as a nation, and it is because we have given up the threshold that held us separate from the rest. How do we reinstitute love and servitude as virtues, how do we reclaim what we have lost. We have lost all that we wanted to be, we’ve allowed our brothers and sisters to believe in this money machine, and we spin out. We are surrounded strictly by a material world, so how can we be surprised when this generation falls to materialism. There is a deficiency of love in this country, and it is because we are withholding what could be given. We need to revamp and revitalize the American Dream, turning it into a dream to flourish, love, and serve.

We don’t know what we’re doing, let’s do it again.

Now, all these things are easier said than done. So the question would be, what does it look like to make these changes. I like to look at it through an Aristotelian lens, because it gives you a sort of philosophical equation to work through. It goes something like this, I’ve paraphrased some, “ Individual actions culminate into habits, those habits then become virtues (or vices) that are characteristic of you, and then your virtues become your Telos, meaning your mission, goal, or purpose for being here on Earth.” Now, looking at your telos, vices, or even habits with the goal of changing them can be incredibly daunting. I have personally been struggling with this equation for the last couple of years, wondering how it could actually help me implement change. I hadn’t really had much success until these last few months as we entered the post Covid-19 world. In order to alter one’s Telos to align with God’s mission, one must live entirely in the moment every moment of every day. You must begin training yourself to react differently in situations then you normally would. At the beginning for me, this was strictly me recognizing my vices, rather than trying to halt them all at once. Hearing myself complain at work every single day, seeing myself hating and being annoyed by those around me, losing my mind behind the wheel of my car, I had to start being embarrassed and repulsed by those actions. The more I recognized them as my actions, the more I wanted to work to change them. This is the stage when you can start to stop yourself in any given moment from doing one of those contemptible things. But just that, stop. This is the stage I was stuck in for a good year or so. I was moving away from the behavior that I hated, but I wasn’t necessarily replacing it with anything worthwhile. This is because I did not have the spiritual strength to choose to be a better person. When you begin expelling vices from your Telos, and replace them with virtues of the Logos, you begin to feel those virtues come easier. It feels good to love, and it feels good because we are fulfilling what we are here to do. But we can’t do it on our own, this requires us to reject our ingrained fallen nature, and replace it with the glory of our true calling. It unfortunately is an impossible war, no amount of fighting and sacrifice can help us win it on our own. In order to emulate the loving embrace of our Lord, we must live in the shelter of the Most High, and we will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty. ( Psalms 91:1–2) Once we understand that God alone is our safety, refuge, and worthy of our trust, loving people without expectation begins to become second nature, an impossible trait to gain alone. The only sentiment I can give to contextualize the feeling I have been having recently is, I don’t really know what I’m doing, but thanks to God I can do it again.

We Belong Past the Setting Sun

We all have a wound that doesn’t heal, and that is our sinful nature. Our fallen characteristics are things that we will always be in toil with, even Jesus struggled against sin. But that’s just it, he struggled against it, and won victoriously. We must struggle against our human nature in loving union with our Lord, and only then will we be able to conquer the vices of the moment. We do not belong here, on this Earth. So here on Earth, we must undercurrent our Love with hope, hope of something greater and more meaningful than what we can see, hear, taste or smell. Let those who are weak say I am strong in the Lord, and the time for Heaven on Earth won’t be long, it will be just past the setting sun. Bring Heaven to Earth today by choosing to love like God loves you.