Vincent Van
Gogh once said that “I must grasp life at
its depth’. That statement brings me
back to a number of years ago when Monica and I spent an evening out at MTC
enjoying the play ‘Our Town’. In this play
one of the actors, a young woman by the name of Emily, asks a vital question
for us to consider. On reflecting upon
life, and what she observes around her she asks “do any human beings ever realize life while they live it – every,
every, minute?” The combination of
these 2 statements have been the foundation of my prayer life lately as I have
spent time in quiet with God – asking myself ‘if I am grasping life at its
depth?’ and ‘am I realizing life while I’m in the midst of living it – every,
every minute?’. Seems like such an easy
thing to say and yet such a difficult concept to grasp.
I am
constantly struck by the life of Jesus.
A man who spent hours alone with His Father in the hills around the Sea
of Galilee and then emerged to engage in every moment of life. Strolling the roads and countryside of
Palestine – stopping to heal people, stopping to teach the crowds of the life
He had come to bring, stopping to attend dinner parties that no respectable
rabbi would find himself at, stopping to see who had touched the edge of his
garment for healing, stopping to enjoy an afternoon of fishing with his
disciples, stopping to have the children come and sit on his lap, stopping long
enough to observe nature and creation and the theology we learn from such
observations. Interesting to note that
Jesus never viewed any of these as interruptions, but rather they were all
opportunities to live every moment of life, grasp it at its depth and bring
people into the reality that today, this moment was the day and moment that God
had made – so rejoice and be glad in it.
I realize so
often how life can be one of being ‘productive’ and the call to do something ‘very
meaningful’ which I think sometimes takes us out of enjoying each moment in the
presence of God. And sometimes has us
not being productive, not being very meaningful, not being very deep – because we
are too busy to see what God has been doing around us. Seems sabbatical is such a rich time to address
some of these very issues. In a world
where we so often qualify ourselves by what we do, what we’ve done lately, what
we’ve accomplished – sabbatical can strip some of that rather bare!
One of the
guides I have used for my prayer time lately, Space For God, has been
challenging again some of the ways in which I so often live. How distracted I often get – distracted by
the things I need to do, distracted by the things that are so important,
distracted by all the things that call for my attention, distracted by the
worries and concerns of people’s lives around me. Many of them even very good things, but also
things that can draw me away from the presence of God, draw me away from
delighting in the presence of God, draw me away from realizing life in the
presence of God – every, every minute.
In the book the author writes the following:
‘the world doesn’t really need more busy
people, maybe not even more intelligent people.
It needs ‘deep people’, people who know that they need solitude if they
are going to find out who they are; silence if their words are to mean anything;
reflection, if their actions are to have any significance; contemplation, if
they are to see the world as it really is; prayer, if they are going to be
conscious of God, if they are to ‘know God and enjoy God forever’
So as I have
spent time lately wrecking (and trying to fix stuff in my house); hanging out
with my family; quietly enjoying the presence of God; resting my brain and body;
the above paragraph has been at the base
of all of that – seeking to realize every minute of life while I live it.
