I do think one of the things that is lacking today is the mental space, and permission to contemplate one’s life, and the meaning of it. There are so many distractions, as well as a culture that thrives like a machine. It produces a great deal, it works constantly, but it doesn’t reflect. It is very much active, and it is an activist culture. But is any of this helpful if all its work doesn’t first spring from peaceful contemplation, meditation and reflection?
Do we ever sit, and evaluate our priorities? Do we not only evaluate our priorities, but demonstrate to ourselves the dissonance in them? None of this is said with a demoralizing mindset. Its more about asking ourselves if we really know what matters. Christ said that we should hate our family before Him. What else should we hate? We know the term “hate” means in this context to “prefer not over” God. Why is it that we prefer what is created over what is Uncreated, what is inferior to what is superior? Is it possible that in part we haven’t reflected?
I think this is where the culture is. It doesn’t reflect so much on meaning inherently in nature. If it suggests meditation, but only empties itself of all desires and all thoughts, this isn’t reflection – its emptiness. It isn’t the harmony of order, it’s the absence of anything to be ordered. It isn’t a clean room, it’s no-room at all.
Again, this isn’t a criticism. I look over the culture, and hope for each to have interior peace. But we cannot have peace without reflection. We cannot have order, without wisdom. What we have instead are desires left undiscerned and disordered. The pope mentions some desire pets more than humans. What other things do we see?
Photo: Ben White, Unsplash / PD-US
