The Risk of Being Lost at Sea
The days have become weeks and the weeks almost months since I returned from Spain and that never never land feeling of long days and idle nights. Gone are the books consumed for breakfast and the glasses of wine for lunch. Certainly, the wasteland of summer vacation cannot be replicated day in and day out or surely that would grow old as well.
Tin has started his new school where they are told to be explorers, inquisitors and risk takers. He has three purple marks leading to his orange. He needs two more. Today, he woke on the wrong side of the bed and I told him if he didn’t listen to me, he would be late, and then he would not get his purple and he would also lose his privileges at home. He stopped, almost on the point of tears, and cried out, “But I’ve worked so hard to get to orange!”
And so it is, that we all work so hard to get our lives in the order we think they need. We make our plans. We put our trust in external validation of how we execute them. We live and learn. But sometimes and all times, plans have a way of imploding and life has a way of unfolding the way it was going to whether you showed up or not. It’s these times that I go back to the thoughts, words, and habits that have sustained me – prayer, meditation, faith, and a good long walk.
I read this article yesterday and it was one of those aha writings – where a columnist explains to an atheist what prayer is – I wish I had written it myself.
I highly recommend it.