I’ve been thinking lately about what really matters. Black lives? All lives? They matter? What does it mean to matter?

In school I learned (thanks, mom!) that matter was what made up the universe. It was fuel to be turned to energy, it made up the huge boulders of mountains and the soft skin of babies. It was, google tells us, the stuff of the universe.

When applied beyond science, we use the term “matter” in a similar way – we say things matter when they have significance. When they are a part of building the world, society, culture around us. To me, matter is what persists. It is what it is – through trends and twitterstorms. It’s the real stuff of our lives.

In today’s world of “fake news”, celebrity gossip, and fantasy football it’s easy to spot the difference from a distance. It’s not so easy to see what matters in the moment.

Looking back on just my last 48 hours I can see an embarrassing number of examples where I focused too much on the stuff that so quickly fades away – like the hour I spent trying to remember if Bill Paxton and Bill Pullman had ever been in a movie together. Doesn’t matter. But the 10 minutes that I spent blowing bubbles and giggling with Brenna and Joshua on the driveway early today created a memory that will persist – it’s an experience that… for lack of a better word… matters.

It’s the real stuff. The stuff that cuts through the bullshit and speaks to the truth of our existence. The stuff that’s so easy to see in the future or past but so hard to notice in the present. If only we had some help in recognizing these things… oh that’s right, we do:

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. – 1 Corinthians 13:13

So there we have it. Faith, Hope, Love… those are the 3 things that remain. The 3 things that matter. So…

What’s the matter with you?