The Empty Shell

This is part 3 in a series. Part one is here.

Last time, we discussed trends of young people drifting more towards orthodoxy as well as the decline of mainline Protestantism. As much as the adults in the world may try to deny it, there is a gaping hole in the hearts of young people. There is emptiness. There is a natural longing for something. This something can be filled in a multitude of ways, and the young people of the world have begun to experiment with these. The most popular ways of coping with this longing involve drugs of some sort. The natural longing of the human heart is the biggest reason for the drug epidemic in today’s world. If the government ever hopes to win the “war on drugs,” they have to eliminate the problem at its root- by filling the human longing with something. 

Pop culture tells teenagers that the longing they have is perfectly natural. Everybody has it. This is very true. The best lies are made with half-truths. Pop culture begins to lie when they say the way to solve the problem is with sex and drugs. It’s been said before that the only way to end abortion in this country is to tear the problem out by its root. This is true. The root of the problem is not people failing to have “safe sex,” though. The root of the problem runs deeper. It doesn't come from the reckless behavior of teenagers and young adults. Is this a problem? Yes. Why are they engaging in such destructive behavior? Because pop culture tells them it’s the only way to fill that desire. Men will feel empty and unloved unless they can have a girl on their hip and be so high they don’t know what’s going on. But that isn't the root of the problem. It runs deeper.

Pop culture has it right. Every person does have this longing. The part they have wrong is what to do with it. Without any concept of anything greater, nothing finite will fill the void. THAT is the root of the problem. In the words of St. Augustine, “my heart is restless until it rests in you.” The problem with the quick fixes our society proposes to solve these problems is that they are just that. Quick fixes cannot fix an infinite hole. They can put a cap on the hole temporarily, but in the end, the longing will still be there, deeper than ever.

How do people deal with this longing when they’ve learned that the drugs and the sex don’t work? They turn to different drugs. Prozac and Cymbalta become the keys to filling the hole instead of marijuana and cocaine. But when these fail to solve the problem, there seems to be only one way to fill the hole. Because so many young people have been feeling this way, suicide is reaching epidemic numbers. It has become the third leading cause of death among young people (behind accidents and homicides). With numbers like these, it would make sense that the government would try to look for a way to solve this epidemic. Unfortunately, it is fairly obvious that the medications coming out are not working. Suicide rates continue to increase. How do we solve this problem?

The solution is glaringly obvious, but it is something that the government will never realize. The solution will not be found in any college chemistry course. No pharmacist will be able to fill a prescription for it. No bar will be able to sell it. The solution is simple. The solution is love.

We have a longing in our hearts for something infinite and eternal. A natural longing, placed there for a reason. That longing can only be filled by something infinite and eternal. What is that infinite and eternal thing? None other than Love itself. More on that in the next post.