While I consider easy answers and over simplifications to be the source of most misconceptions, and thus the cause of many problems, I keep running into a very simple formula: To hurry is to slip into autopilot, which is sleepwalking, and to be asleep is to miss the transformative energy of living.
There's a reason that we have been given a life to live rather than some process by which we receive a download of truth from on high. (I have no intention here to speculate about what that ultimate reason may be, I assert it as self evident and proceed to ask the question: What does it mean to live?)
The beginning of the familiar yet wonderful passage from the poet Rilke about living our questions begins with this line, "The point is, to live everything." Why would this be the point? There are so many things one could emphasize.
Here we circle back to the problem of easy answers. Any conclusion that is not lived -- not walked out in the particular context of a particular life -- is a thin conclusion. (Thin like caricature is an over simplification of a fully human story.) Thin conclusions lead to false assumptions about the nature of reality. Violence and greed, isolation and fear are the result.
Since reality is far more complex than I can even begin to imagine, and real answers are hard to come by, I live in uncertainty. The most important thing for me to do then, and thus the most practical, is to slow down and wake up.
It is only when I slow down that I have a chance to climb out of the presumptuous rut that automatic living creates. Then I can awaken to the mercies of each new morning. I can begin to notice the image of God hidden behind the protective personae of my neighbor. I can imagine new possibilities and cultivate hope. In this way I am present to my life. My life -- which God has given as both gift and necessity -- must be lived for the next thing to happen, whatever that may be.
For now the only obvious the next thing is today. Today can only be lived if I wake up which can only happen if I slow down.
There's a reason that we have been given a life to live rather than some process by which we receive a download of truth from on high. (I have no intention here to speculate about what that ultimate reason may be, I assert it as self evident and proceed to ask the question: What does it mean to live?)
The beginning of the familiar yet wonderful passage from the poet Rilke about living our questions begins with this line, "The point is, to live everything." Why would this be the point? There are so many things one could emphasize.
Here we circle back to the problem of easy answers. Any conclusion that is not lived -- not walked out in the particular context of a particular life -- is a thin conclusion. (Thin like caricature is an over simplification of a fully human story.) Thin conclusions lead to false assumptions about the nature of reality. Violence and greed, isolation and fear are the result.
Since reality is far more complex than I can even begin to imagine, and real answers are hard to come by, I live in uncertainty. The most important thing for me to do then, and thus the most practical, is to slow down and wake up.
It is only when I slow down that I have a chance to climb out of the presumptuous rut that automatic living creates. Then I can awaken to the mercies of each new morning. I can begin to notice the image of God hidden behind the protective personae of my neighbor. I can imagine new possibilities and cultivate hope. In this way I am present to my life. My life -- which God has given as both gift and necessity -- must be lived for the next thing to happen, whatever that may be.
For now the only obvious the next thing is today. Today can only be lived if I wake up which can only happen if I slow down.
