Are We There Yet?

The question “Are we there yet?” is most often asked by children sitting in the back seat of a car headed for a summer vacation. The response from the driver is usually “almost” there. Almost and yet are like “carrots and peas”, they compliment each other. Almost and yet are liminal words, connoting a transition in time and space.

Oddly enough, what got me thinking about “almost and not yet” was this Memorial Day and watching several war movies during the rainy weekend. Our country’s history, indeed, our human history, is marked by endless wars and conflicts. Genocides and holocausts have touched every continent – save Antarctica. Even our faith tradition, or salvation history, begins with being enslaved and then crushing Pharaoh’s army along with the Egyptian economy.

Jesus, the essence of non-violence, demonstrates to us a new way of living. He gave his life so that we can live this new life in him. He sent the Holy Spirit to provide us the gifts and graces to live a virtuous life. And yet we succumb to our lower angels even as we remember with Abraham Lincoln; “ The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

How is it that I who profess Jesus as Lord can see within myself the potential for the same violence that crucifies my brothers and sisters? Could it be that I too am almost and not yet? With St. Paul as a mentor, my hope and goal is to keep pressing on to perfection. I know there is much work to be done within me as I move from not yet to almost.

On Memorial Day I am reminded that our Constitution points us to “a more perfect Union.” Today, 234 years later, we are still pressing on. Did the writers have the sense of being almost perfect and not yet? They too wrestled with their better and lower angels; being capable of being a slave owner and yet knowing we are all created equal. There is tension in having a flawed human body and an eternal soul, of living in the almost and not yet. I am thankful for the better angels of our nature that stir us to move toward perfection. On our spiritual journey into the heart of God, I can hear the question: “ Are we there yet?” And Jesus responding, “Almost.”