"It's a royal pain in the ass, but I could live with it"

A deep diaconal bow to Fr. Erik, who blogs over at Orthometer, for bringing the Geico commerical below, featuring actor and former Marine drill instructor, R. Lee Ermey, to my attention. My earliest experience as an adult was Marine Corps (pronounced "core" for those who can't be bothered to learn proper pronunciation, not "corpse", as in dead body) boot camp at Marine Recruit Depot in San Diego, California. It was shock therapy for my young soul. Before that I thought summer football practice was rough! Prior to that I don't think I had never been called a douchebag by an adult, at least not to my face, though I was not unfamiliar with being denigrated in profane ways.

I posted this video on Facebook because I think it is funny and because it contains a deeper truth, at least one I perceive. In a FB comment, my friend Michael, who has a wonderfully wicked sense of humor, provided a link to this Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) tutorial by Albert Ellis, which prompted me to think a little more about why the Geico commercial struck me like it did. Cutting to the chase, Michael pulls this out of the Ellis video: "Right. But you better go back to, 'It's a royal pain in the ass, but I could live with it!'."

I try not use my blog as a space to work out my personal issues, at least not in an overt and explicit way, but I have certainly had my struggles, especially with depression and few other thorns in the flesh. I wrote about this once almost exactly two years ago- Surrendered to Self-Preservation" Lord Save Me. I made it a point to address this issue when I was feeling good, not in a morass. I alluded to it again in early 2009- Acedia, me, and Kathleen Norris.

Here is what struck me today- The method I learned from Giussani, rooted in reality, which is anchored in God made Man for me, the person and work of Christ, is the best therapy. "It's a royal pain in the ass" is an accurate perception of reality at times. How do I face, stand in front of, use these circumstances to move toward my destiny? That is the only question that ever really matters. It is only because He accompanies me that I can pose this question honestly. That things aren't always the way I want them to be is the best refutation of solipsism. The most powerful way He accompanies me is by giving me companions.

True companions challenge and provoke me. In words of the Movement that is the fruit of the charism in which, by God's grace, I share, they love me by loving my destiny, by not only helping me honestly ask the questions above, but to answer them truthfully, using what happens to me, my experience, as the touchstone. As I shared with Fred last Sunday, the line from the Green Day song, Time of Your Life, is so meaningful to me and reminds me of the primacy of my experience: "it's not a question, but an answer learned in time/it's something unpredictable, but in the end is right..." So many of my these friendships are so improbable, which improbability enables me to see that it is ultimately Him who gives me what I need, which is nothing other than Himself in various ways.

It also reminds me of the film As Good As It Gets, a movie I love, but only because I am a Christian. Otherwise, it'd be more than a little depressing. So, it is only because at times my circumstances are a royal pain in the ass that, not only can I live with it, but through such circumstances come to see what it means to be truly alive. Regardless of my circumstances, I find yellow to be a happy color.