October 2, 2009
Taking the Time to Make a Difference
In appreciation of beautiful places
BY PAUL R. LEINGANG
It usually brings a smile. When my wife or I see a television or newspaper account of an event that has taken place in a location which we have visited, one of us will say to the other, “I’ve been there.”
I should qualify the “smile” reaction. It happens only when something pleasant is taking place in the distant location — something like a travel feature on the Yucatan (I’ve been there) or a news story about Pope Benedict XVI going to see the Infant of Prague. (I’ve been there, too.)
The comment has to be reserved for just the two of us. Other people might easily get tired of hearing about the places we have been fortunate enough to visit.
The first program of a Ken Burns television special on the national parks of the United States provided unforgettable photography — and happy memories for us, especially of Yosemite National Park in California.
The program also provided many more images of places we have not been and beautiful vistas we have not seen — but which nonetheless helped us appreciate even more the farsightedness of the people who protected the beauty of God’s world, these holy places.
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The Vatican Information Service recently provided coverage of the pope’s travels to several cities in the Czech Republic. His visit coincided with that country’s celebration of the twentieth anniversary of the Velvet Revolution — the non-violent overthrow of the communist government in 1989.
The Czech Republic is widely viewed as Europe’s least-religious country, according to Catholic News Service. The pope went to see the Infant of Prague at the Church of Our Lady of Victory and to the town where St. Wenceslaus was murdered.
The pope met with church and national leaders — and with young people who had never experienced life under communist rule.
“I was especially delighted to meet the young people, and to encourage them to build on the best traditions of this nation’s past, particularly its Christian heritage,” said Pope Benedict, as quoted by Vatican Information Service,
“According to a saying attributed to Franz Kafka,” said the 82-year-old pope, “‘anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.’ If our eyes remain open to the beauty of God’s creation and our minds to the beauty of his truth, then we may indeed hope to remain young and to build a world that reflects something of that divine beauty, so as to inspire future generations to do likewise.”
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I will never forget the reaction of some city kids from a poor neighborhood in St. Louis on their first-ever camping trip to a state park. They had never before seen the beauty of a starlit sky away from the lights of a city at night. They had never seen a clear flowing river. But because of an organized church effort, each of them could say, “I’ve been there.”
The thought comes to me, too, that I have witnessed beauty and truth in the faith of other people, in the holy places of weddings and funerals and in the ordinary celebrations of everyday holy family life. I’ve been there — and I hope our children, and all of our children, continue to find beauty there as well.
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Where are the locations — in your home or on the other side of the world — where you have experienced a burst of God’s creative beauty?
What are the best traditions of your heritage? If you have children, can they say, “I’ve been there?”
Take the time to make it possible for someone — a friend or a stranger — to experience beauty.
Take the time to answer the call to protect and share the beauty God gives us, in the world around us and in the expression and reality of the faith inside us.
Comments are welcome at office@cfm.org or the Christian Family Movement, P.O. Box 925, Evansvsille, IN 47706-0925