Sometimes it seems that things are moving at a fast pace. For instance, back in the summer I bought a Blackberry, and since then several new models have come out, making mine seem just a little out of date. Yet with all the progress we make, all the technological advances, we’re still very much the same people. We are people who often yearn for love, wrestle with fear, and lash out as we try to maintain a place of higher importance over the people around us.
But now we are being called, called to a new understanding, a new thought.
You are meant for more. You are meant to learn lessons and take wisdom from the past as well as to learn from what you have experienced in your personal history, and then to push unstoppably forward. You can learn and walk forward into new understandings, new wisdom, new truth. What is this new understanding, this new wisdom, this new truth? There are two of them in particular to focus on at the moment. Let's start with the second.
The second truth is something that we are being called to realize and to take part in. This truth is like a little child standing at the edge of a majestic forest, looking over her shoulder and reaching her arm back towards us. She waits for us to take hold of her hand and to walk. This truth is that we are one people, that one by one boundaries are being torn down. They crash to the ground as we focus on our commonalities with our fellow humanity, rather than on the ways in which we differ. Even more, those differences which once were obstacles to our unity, now they are opportunities to learn. As we realize this truth more fully, the more we shake our heads at the images that we see on TV, images of people living even side-side who are killing one another. Gaza and Afghanistan come to mind. Don’t misunderstand me, these are life-altering and tragic conflicts for those directly involved. But as we more fully realize the truth of our unity, these conflicts, or at least the reasons for them, seem to grow smaller and smaller.
Of course this truth is something we can not walk into unless we learn the one that comes before it. And that is that a key part of the answer to one of the biggest questions of life – the meaning of life - is much closer than we may have previously realized.
Who is it that we are to worship? Who will give us the answer? What are we to do to be acceptable to God?
These questions, and the anxiety that they produce, lose so very much of their importance and grip on our lives when we realize that the reason for living is to live.
While we are all connected as part of existence, we are each unique. There is no one like you. That is a good thing.
You are a good thing.
Isn’t it time, my friend, to lay down your arms that you’ve had aimed at yourself and your seemingly outlandish, lofty dreams, and instead crack the door open to the notion that you are an irreplaceable part of life, a gift. You contain a perspective and wisdom within you that needs to break out into the world, into life. Keep being curious, keep acquiring knowledge that will help you to understand life, but be sure to use your own voice and realize that you aren’t meant to be a copy of anyone who has ever lived.
I pray joy for your journey today as you continue to discover and to step forward into your own new truth.
