Do not speak unless it improves on silence.

I Have a Great Deal to Learn

Ah, my soul felt empty this morning. The kids are home from school, and summer camp has not begun. Things that might benefit them, like reading books or riding bikes, are not on their radar. Instead, computer gaming draws their attention.The house is disheveled. My school board meeting last night was brutal. I spent the hour between its end and my going to sleep watching a weird science fiction show that I really don’t care about. But I was drained. When I got up, my soul was empty.

When that happens, I have to pull out the tried-and-true resources: the Bible, Merton, Portals of Prayer, Moon in a Dewdrop, or maybe my new read, Everyday Zen. Merton won out this morning. Merton's reflections today in my Year with Thomas Merton were tied to a visit from a fellow monastic. The visitor was well versed in both Christian and Eastern faiths. As Merton noted the visit, he noted his perturbation at a loud tractor in a field near the monastery. It seemed to him that this year’s model was louder and more aggressive sounding.

To paraphrase Merton, our upgraded machines, our bright, shining “improved” tools, represent our fury, restlessness, avidity, and ultimately our despair. Our machines and our "paths of progress" go around and around; being ultimately meaningless. All we experience is the sound of clanking metal pieces. Looking for something better, we travel on an empty, sad path.

Our desires to get the next thing to fill a hole in our life never fill it. And we have repeated the cycle often enough to know at least at the subconscious level that the new boy or girl friend, the new blouse, the new car will not change us and make us happier. So often, our attempts at making “it” better leave the problem (or perhaps a better term is the emptiness) worse than it was before.

There is an ad out now selling an upgrade program at a big-box electronics store. In essence, the advert goes like this: if you buy a computer today, the computer with the x-factor will be released tomorrow, and the little kid next door will make fun of you. If you buy into the optional upgrade program, you will get some allotted portion of your current purchase price applied to the next best thing when you buy it. Did I mention meaningless clanking? In this case, meaningless clanking becomes ritualized. What we need is acceptance of ourselves in place in our world.

I guess this is just a long-winded way of getting to the point of acceptance and mindfulness as a way to approach the day. What is mindfulness? “Mindfulness is the aware, balanced acceptance of the present experience. It isn't more complicated than that. It is opening to or receiving the present moment, pleasant or unpleasant, just as it is, without either clinging to it or rejecting it.” Sylvia Boorstein said this. Take today on its own terms mindfully; you don’t need to fill any holes. Maybe it is better to say lose the passion to fill the holes.

Ah heck, one Van Morrison is never enough. Here is another. He may be a cantankerous ass but damn he writes good songs.