In the End, Does it Matter?

When I was a teenager, the priest I would go to for confession used to tell me, over and over: “In the end, we all get the same dirty hole in the ground.”

What he meant was, it doesn’t matter how rich or smart or well-liked we are. We’re all heading to the same place. This life comes to an end for every man. All the money he earns, all the stuff, all the worldly esteem, will at some point be of no further use. We all get the same dirty hole in the ground.

It was an important message for me to hear, because at the time, it all seemed so important: my after-school job and my FAFSA application and my grades. The admiration of my friends and teachers. I was so consumed with what I was going to become that I wasn’t spending a lot of time thinking about who I was going to become. But the who is the only thing that lasts until the next life.

And to be honest, it’s all still too important to me. Avoiding sadness and disappointment. Saving money and being liked. Focusing on “the five-year plan” when it comes to career, house plans, and a whole bunch of other things I can’t take to my dirty hole in the ground.

Jesus was radical in his teaching that the “stuff” in life wasn’t all that important. It was radical for him to say that the worldly signs of success — wealth, popularity, pleasure — did not amount to a whole lot in the grand scheme of things and that suffering could sanctify us. It was radical in the ancient world, and it’s radical today.

Are we ready to be radical, too?

©LPi