Not Our World

I was recently struck by this idea. It started with a Head song and lingered in the humus of my mind for a long time, several weeks, until it finally sprouted. It is a simple idea, but one that changes perspective on so many things.

As usual, it has a lot to do with the death of the self. Our own pride, self-serving is the biggest problem we face as individuals and in groups, I think. The great I is always vying for control, and it gets it very easily. One of the surest ways to quiet a troubled mind is to get it occupied on someone else...serving someone else. There can be self-centeredness that comes off arrogant and snooty and there can also be self-centeredness that simply focuses on oneself too much. That is, even focusing on changing ourselves is still a form of self-centeredness.

Anyway, when I meditate on the phrase, "His world" it changes so much of my desire and perspective. His sky, His water, His land, His food, His air, His electrons, His life force. What if, just what if, everything was truly and literally God's. He didn't make it and give it to us, or walk away from it. It's all His. I know this sounds like a truism on the surface, but that's the case with most contemplative revelations. But let it sink and and mull it over so that you think it about everything you look at, everything you do. Every breath you take.

I realized, like really felt it become a reality for me, that I am not in the least in control of any moment of my life. My air could stop, my body can break down, illness can overtake me, rocks can fall from the sky, the air I suck in can poison me, my very cells can lose cohesion and my body disintegrate. I no more make the air I suck in replenish the oxygen in my body than I make the sun come up or go down. There is a universe of complex interactions going on around me all the time. I see this as an ecologist. And we humans have nothing to do with it. We take it for granted. There are places that do not even exist for us. Places in this physical world where humans cannot go... yet they exist. For who? Not for us, certainly. For other beings? Perhaps. ('They just do', is not an answer it's a cop out, so quit thinking it. And no good scientist will accept it either. Only the hacks are satisfied with answers like that. A good scientist would answer, "I don't know." There's a big difference.)

As someone who has experienced evidence of the living God, I can say with certainty that they exists ultimately for God. For His pleasure. Sure, He often has other purposes that we can come to know, but that doesn't negate the root reason, even if some secondary reason serves us.

We delude ourselves into thinking we control anything. We plan and when things go our way, we think we've managed risk well. Bull! We didn't control anything. We just pretended to like the kid who thinks that he has special powers when something he desires actually occurs. If things went well it was pure grace, nothing more.

This leads us into a very submissive frame of mind. I control nothing. I am essentially a toy. I feel sophisticated, but that is simply because I couldn't make me. I may very well be more the complexity of a clay figure than an AI robot. How would I know? Yet for all this, I am given special provision. I am touched by the living God. He talks to me. He feeds me. He cares for me better than wildlife, better than livestock, better than a pet. He treats me like a son, and He even sets me over things He's made. He even merged me into Himself, imparted some of His reality, His prime generating powerful self to me.

The Bible clearly confirms this in verses I have read over many times. For His pleasure we were created...fearfully and wonderfully made...we are God's workmanship...in Him we live and move and have our being...through Him all things were made that have been made...yet not even one (sparrow) falls to the ground apart from Him...

It is humbling and liberating. I am not responsible for my own survival, or the survival of others. My family's welfare does not hinge on me. The fate of society and even the world does not hinge on me. I couldn't destroy it if I wanted to. What I do I do not do out of necessity for survival or responsibility, but out of gratitude and service and fun, as the case may be.

Sapped

I haven't posted much lately because I've been busy and haven't felt that I really had much to say. Today though, through a certain turn of events at work, I realized how susceptible I am to very subtle forms of stress. This form of stress seems to come because I have this nasty habit of caring. Caring about what I do, caring about how my actions affect others. Caring about what I am charged to do in my work. If I didn't care, I wouldn't have this problem. But the thing I can't resolve is that if you give me a job to do, I am going to try my best to succeed at it. Good, right? Well, I thought so until recently. Now I'm more convinced that no one really wants me to do what they charged me with. They just want me to look like I'm doing what I was charged with doing, without really getting in anyone's business of preserving themselves and without rocking any boats.

I have experienced this before years ago at a job. Finally, my solution was to quit trying. I just made life easy on myself. Why bother putting in the energy when no one really wanted me to do it anyway. Now I'm responsible for much more and have a trust bestowed upon me in principle if not in fact, to serve the public interest. I turned out to be pretty good at what I do. For a long time that got me a long way. I had a relatively independent spot and people really liked what I could do with it. Now I'm more in the mix of things and I keep finding myself crammed up against other people who don't seem to care and those who care but don't know what to do about it. So what to do? Stop trying so hard? Do what I'm asked and no more? Put in my time and go home? That would certainly be easier on me. Or do I fight the fight? Keep pressing? Endure and struggle and scrape to get one inch of ground this way and that like moving a 2 ton block?

I can hear the voice of culture and training saying the latter definitely will be rewarded. Press and fight and wear myself away at the wheel. My reward will come. But the voice in my heart says this is false. That I should not place my identity even in these things. That I should not struggle or strive, but simply exist. That I should engage things as water engages the stone. It can't be grasped, it can't be held, just flowing around and over.

I've never been a career-minded person. That is a hollow goal. My job is expedient to my needs right now, but should not own or define me. It's just so hard to stay out of it when surrounded by a constant thrumming of other attitudes. Even if those attitudes prove themselves to be false in the actions of the speakers.

God give me the ability to see that in every situation and to only invest where you tell me to.
Give me the strength to block out the urge to fall for the rhetoric without becoming bitter or lazy.