Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Death is not the greatest loss in life. The
greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.

- Norman Cousins, essayist & editor of The
Saturday Review, born on this date, 1912


I have become a cynic over the last 20 years, maybe more. I believe nothing that I hear a politician say, and I believe almost nothing of what I read in the establishment press. And recently I read something like “Cynicism is intellectual treachery”. Yes, I know that cynicism is contrary to the Gospel (at least as I understand the Gospel, which is very unlike how many understand it) – but I am also cynical about most of what establishment Christianity (and other religions) have to say these days.

However, I would call myself a Happy Cynic, or perhaps an Hopeful Cynic! I do believe metaphorically in the “Holy Spirit”. I believe that there is a sprite of Goodness and Love operative in the Universe. She is sneaky! And watchful. Where there is a human heart, mind, or spirit open to belief in Goodness and Love, She is right there, pumping up the belief like a good pair of bellows coaxing Life out of dying embers. And happily my “embers” are very open to coaxing!

I have suffered a plethora of losses in my Life – theological, of the heart, intellectual. And in the midst of the “dyings”, the bellows have continued to encourage new Life in my inner being. For everything that cynicism has embittered, delightful new ideas, relationships, understandings have burst into life. My Life has simplified. Important principles have become clear. Various burdens have been lifted.

My experience has been the opposite of what Cousins said. The great interior losses – or so I thought of them as losses - have been not a kind of deaths but rather a kind of pruning for luxuriant new growth. And a simplification and clarifying of Life.

I am grateful. And I wish for you the same adventure.

Brian+