"You don't know what you want!" A mother often said this to her child on days when the child asked for one thing after another-and proceeded to pay little or no attention to any of it. First the child wanted to be outside, then shortly to come inside. Later the child wanted to go upstairs, then downstairs. This was followed by "Can I go here? or . . . there? . . . have this? or . . . that?" It was true, on those days the child just didn't know what he wanted.

Sadly, the same can be said for many of us as adults. We jump from one thing to the next, seeking happiness and excitement and fulfillment from the many options offered by our world. Fads, they call them-and we are taken in by many of them.

Indeed, what will truly and only make us happy is to know, love, and serve God in this world, and to be happy in God's presence in the next world. This sounds so "traditional," old-fashioned, but it is nonetheless true. It is God's desire and God's plan to have us be present to him in heaven, but also to be present to him here on earth . . . in prayer, in sacrament, in daily living. We need to take this fact more seriously than we often do. This is not something to get all excited about when life is winding down. It's something to live and nurture all during our lives.

The recent feast of Timothy and Titus reminds us of the care and the affection that Paul had for each of them. They were his very dear friends. Paul coached them in the faith; he took each of them, as it were, "under his wing." We do this for each other when we pass on various skills. We also must do this for each other in our faith, our life in God. For example, in the Scouting program, young people are cared for and mentored in basic skills of life-first-aid, cooking, survival, and human values like honesty and cleanliness. In Junior Achievement young people are mentored in areas of business. Who does this for us in the area of faith?

Whether we know it or not, what will make us happy both here and hereafter is life with God. Would not small communities of caring mentoring Christians make all of us happier . . . even here . . . even now?

© Harcourt Religion Publishers/BROWN-ROA