Root in Ourselves

Mark 4:16-17

And these are they likewise which are sown on stony ground; who, when they have heard the word, immediately receive it with gladness;

And have no root in themselves, and so endure but for a time: afterward, when affliction or persecution ariseth for the word's sake, immediately they are offended.

 

On the surface of things,

bright lights and sounds flash

and skip about from here to there;

We dance in the nightclub,

compelled by the beat,

poses and pulses in the moment.

On waking,

our bones are heavy, our mindss complain,

and the sun knifes right through us;

We’re befuddled,

our guts heave,

we can’t find our shoes.

 

We walk through the day and life happens around us, life happens to us,

and we let it as we skip about on the surface of things,

never stopping,

never looking up and past our skins,

waiting for the bright flashes, the driving sounds, the entertainment

upon which we bounce around, giddy and greedy, until we are sick,

and only then do we pause and use the stillness and silence as a jumpstart back

into the non-boring world.

Because we won’t be bored…

We won’t let life dig deeply into us where truth might take root.

We won’t be submerged into the depth of stillness and silence

to the place where the core of our being is welled in Mystery.

 

Make me feel good, we say.  Entertain me.  Everything else push away like a blur.

We don’t ponder, don’t choose, don’t dig deep and plant ourselves in the depth of reality,

where we will know rain and cold and heat and pain, growing

roots that will endlessly satisfy our deep, inner longing

for Truth though we feel It will break us – we won’t let Truth break through

and expose our feelings for fools,

the nightclub a game to deaden the soul.

 

Surviving on the surface, on the high points of feeling,

we barren ourselves of life, of full reality.

We react.

But, we don’t live.

Christina Chase