Early this morning, I walked a path I had not been on in nearly twenty years. it meandered around in a high and steep cliff overlooking the ocean on a peninsula in Southern California. There were many natural lookout points to just stop and gaze - to see the play of the surf on the rocky beach so far below me and, as it receded, the evidence of its long history in doing just that, to see the sea birds gliding gracefully upon the dancing winds, to hear the doves cooing in their nests amidst the bushes blooming in the crevices, to see the sun sprinkling its light where shadows end, and to feel it all and feel one with it all. I walked, I sat to drink in this moment, this salty and sweet pause in my life, but mostly I just admired. (PLEASE CLICK ON THE TITLE ABOVE TO CONTINUE READING.)
|
Walking on, a runner passed me, head down, ear buds pumping and pounding a beat. My first thought was "Wow, what a great place for a run!" And then I quickly realized the he was missing it, with his head down concentrating on where his next step might fall on the path and the one right after that one, not even seeing all that I had just surveyed, and not hearing the majestic early morning symphony playing around us. I don't mean for this to sound critical (he was exercising after all), but the stark contrast really hit me and caused me to become at that moment an observer of the rhythm of life and what that really means. As a confession, I was 'running' too. I was on this trip to help a company figure out its course, its strategy, to help them get more done faster. And, while engaged, all of that felt so real, so energizing, so rewarding. But what hit me that morning was this question: why is it that we have so readily accepted as normal the addiction we have to moving through this life at breackneck speed, chasing a driving need to accomplish more, to develop every opportunity with urgency, to get there first. And when that list is done, to go create a new list to drive similar behaviors about the next thing, and so on. The pace of our normal lives has certainly become highly accelerated. And why have we so readily accepted at this altar of "do more" the sacrifice, the loss of even a concept of fullness of some kind of peace? So many people speak of balance, the lack of it, the longing for it. Most of the time it is offered really as a justification or an excuse for a self-assessed well-earned break from the 'norm', permission for a brief time to get off life's treadmill and unplug. I fear we may be in mourning for 'balance' . Where is stillness? The stillness that allows the mind to calm its hot fires; the stillness that allows even brief moments of transcendence; the quiet stillness that lets words, thoughts, images, and symbols have a chance to disappear or fade away from our minds; the stillness that is so inviting to the touch of grace? That stillness can't wait for us to "make time for it" - that will never work. It only has a fighting chance if we make it a priority, demonstrate a willingness to let "it" happen and an acquiescence to give it precedence over our clocks, and our stopwatches that control so much of what we all do. To be truly listening and ready when it says "Now". I am a realist. I know we can't blissfully stay in this transcendent state. We must climb back down and live our lives' lives that would be richer if we could just bring some of that stillness back down with us, aware of its effect on the life that is living itself in us, even as we race through the crashing of the days. |