Brian’s Reflection: Monday, May 17, 2010

I try to remind myself that we are never promised anything,
and that what control we can exert is not over the events that
befall us but how we address ourselves to them.

Jeanne DePrau, in The Earth House


“Don’t worry about tomorrow; today has enough worries of its own.”

People tend to think that Jesus was countenancing irresponsibility. We think of the Ant and the Grasshopper. Nope. He was dealing with the dreaded issue of Control! And with Reality. Oh, we human beings are ever the optimists – or perhaps the delusionists. We persist in thinking that we can control what’s coming tomorrow. We like to think that if we are really smart we can surely figure out what’s likely to come our way and “control” it. What silly creatures we are!

Education, if it’s “bad”, tries to train us to control Life and our lives. Religion, if it’s “good”, tries to train us to prepare for Mystery and the Unknown. Useful Religion teaches us the true principles that underlie Life, and alerts us to the skills we will need to respond to what “befalls us”. The Ten Commandments or Hammurabi’s Code are examples of this – though I’m not saying that such things as that don’t need to be constantly reassessed – all “rules” do.

Jesus decided to go for broke. He sure must have thought a lot of us Humans! “Love”, He said. Sounds simplistic. It isn’t. It’s the High Standard. Just try going through the day meeting everything that comes your way – which you can’t control, given the unpredictability of human beings – with the conscious intention to Love. Having, of course, boned up on the Art of Love.

Let me know how you do!

Brian+