The Mundane Way

Mainstream American culture is addicted to security, convenience and comfort. Ads of all kinds bombard us endlessly, promising products and services that will please, excite, satisfy, comfort or reassure us just the way we like. In short, they're selling a fantasy. Life is not always comfortable, secure or convenient. It is often messy, uncertain, fragile, confusing and unpredictable. What is the cost of our dependence on comfort, security and convenience? In addition to the strain on our wallets, what is it costing the earth, our bodies, our communities, our souls? I don't want to get extreme about this, but it might not hurt to allow myself to experience a bit of discomfort or to live with a minor inconvenience rather than buy something to "fix" it. If c onsumerism is the belief that the solution to every problem or the fulfillment of every need ends with a purchase, I could try instead to imagine solutions and satisfactions that don't involve acquiring anot...

I think very young children children know much more of Truth in a much more immediate way than adults can fathom. They can't tell us about it, of course, but not because their vocabulary or linguistic development are lacking. It's because there are no words with which to tell such a thing. Even those rare souls who have glimpsed Truth as grown men and women are ultimately at a loss to convey what they've seen, though many have tried and I'm grateful for their efforts. The Truth as seen by children and mystics cannot be described fully; it can only be experienced fully. So say those who have had the experience, anyway. I wouldn't know. What a child knows intuitively, the youth slowly forgets, and the adult must work tirelessly for the rest of his life to have even a faint hope of recovering it.