making sense of a dysfunctional culture
I tend to get too busy and too stressed about what’s going on in my daily life to relax and pay attention to what’s around me. Maybe you do, too.
This evening, I parked my car — intending to run into a store and then run home — but something stopped me. I found myself thinking about how much I needed the peace that comes from shutting up the monkey mind in my head and becoming part of nature around me.
Watch the two-minute video to hear my thoughts — and some sounds of falling rain.
I believe in things I can’t even see.
I believe in the wind. I believe in love. I believe in a Spirit who made all of us and who lives in all things. I believe I can feel and see and touch truth in ways I can’t explain or prove.
I believe in these things because the eyes of my spirit or heart can dimly see them. Like a ticking clock in a quiet room, these things can become loud and obvious when I focus on them. But in the same way that the ticking clock is drowned out by the everyday sounds of life — to the point we don’t even notice it’s there — these things which I believe are true can be easily obscured by the cacophony of this material world.
When my world becomes too loud — and the competing angry shouts and blasts of hate grow strong — I have to remind myself of these quiet things. I have to go inside my heart and become silent — so I can remember what I believe is true.
For the last few years, I’ve struggled to kill a stubborn little weed.
I’ve never seen anything like it. I have no idea exactly what it is or where it comes from, but a tiny shoot of it keeps growing out of a little space at the top of one of my kitchen windows.
I’ve cut it. I’ve poured weed-killer into the crack between the window and the wall. I’ve killed everything outside the house that looked as though it might somehow connect to it. But no matter what I do, I keep finding a little shoot growing out of that spot, often with tiny new leaves.
I just found these latest leaves a few minutes ago. I was shocked, because I thought I’d won the battle a couple of months ago. I thought it was gone. But somehow — despite all my best efforts — it’s back again. It’s still alive.
As I stood there looking at it — again contemplating how to kill it for good — I couldn’t help but realize that Nature works really hard to ensure the survival of certain things it creates. And then it occurred to me that this was a perfect metaphor for some powerful feelings that I haven’t been able to kill.
I often need to remind myself what I still believe to be true
Nature struggles to keep alive
All of nature listens to gut instinct, but humans often ignore that voice
We’re neither friends nor enemies, just strangers who share the past
‘This path leads to somewhere I think I can finally say, I’m home’
When love finally dies, it’s like a fever breaks and the pain is gone
Society needs storytellers to help make sense of a changing world
My bad teen poetry suggests I’ve always hungered for missing love