What is "good"?

Today I had well meaning friend tell me that I shouldn't be so busy...that I should be making more time for prayer...

I have not been able to go to the prayer group which I had originally started, because no one wanted to come on Sundays. Too much work, is basically what I heard.

So it was moved to Fridays by someone else. It is a better place to meet--right in the church in front of the Blessed Sacrament. And yet, I can't go most of the time. Because it is during the week, and every single day is filled during the week. That's why I wanted Sundays. It's already a day of prayer, a day meant to be set aside for rest and relaxation. You aren't supposed to be working on Sundays.

I had mentioned this fact to someone who told me then said that we should pray more....we shouldn't be so busy. The Blessed Mother (per Medugorje message) has said so.

I don't disagree. Perhaps it struck a nerve because every day, I go to bed thinking to myself, "I need to make more time for prayer." I do try. It is difficult and I need to work on it, but I try. Some days more than others, but I do try.

Anyway, what is a "good" person? This is the thought that came to myself today. When we secretly admonish others whether it be through our thoughts or in our words? When we allow our own judgments of what "being good" means interferes into someone else's life?

We all have our own ideas of what being good means to us. For myself, it means not being judgmental, for working on yourself more than working on others. Making time for God but more than anything, loving Him as much as you can with the time that you have in your day.

Let's face it. This world is overrun by expectations and deadlines. People expect so much from one another. If it's not from the workplace, it is from the home. Look at Pintrest and the desire to be neat and pretty all the time. To be organized. Look at each other--the people who put on a happy face with their happy family and their neat and tidy house. Look at the people going to church; those who praye and look respectfully somber. Is that good?

I don't know. I find there is good in all those things. But I don't think that's what makes a person "good."

That's why I find the answer to what "good" means in this quote from the Bible: "Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good--except God alone." Mark 10:18

I read that quote and a weight is lifted. Because, although I would like to organized, I am not. (By "organized, I don't mean alphabetizing your spice rack or color coordinating your clothes. I am talking about getting simple jobs around the house, knowing what to do with access clutter instead of piling up on the couch or kitchen counters..)  And my house is rarely neat and tidy. If I am going to be truly honest, it is not because I have five kids. It's because I hate cleaning.

And I do pray. I pray in little moments of the day. I pray in moments when I feel myself losing strength to be patient--or pray when I realized that I have already lost strength and yelled at someone.

We are a happy family--most of the itme. But we bicker and fight. My kids don't know as much as they should of their Catechism, but we are learning, if only slowly. Me and Dennis are not good at being calm and we need to be so our kids will learn to be calm. We are working on it but it's a work in progress. In the meantime, my kids are spazzes and dramatic--just like me.

So what is good? I don't believe too many in this world are truly "good." Those who have achieved such goodness are living saints--and they are good only because they have surrendered all their attachments that hold them back and let God make them good.

In the meantime, we have no right to judge one another. No right to look down on our noses at one another when someone does one thing and we do it another way. Or when we do something "good" (daily Mass for instance) but the other maybe hasn't gotten to that place in their life when they are able to achieve that good.

Life is not a contest. We all will be judged on our vanity. And funny enough, God will point out much of our vanity was not about possessions as much as it was in our judgment of what we consider to be "good."