Today's
Meditation:
I
often wonder why we find death so tragic while all around
us people are walking around in pain, physical and mental
and emotional, but so few of us react strongly to
that. When someone dies, almost all religions say
that they're moving on to something much better--heaven,
union with God, a beautiful spiritual world. So why
do we feel that it's so tragic that an elderly person
dies, while inside of ourselves we let beautiful things
die all the time?
Many
people allow their compassion to die as they become more
and more judgmental and fearful. There are people
who let their childlike sense of wonder die in order to
take a more "adult" view of life, becoming more
serious and staid and stodgy until kids don't really enjoy
being around them any more. Others let their love
die because they allow their fear to grow. Still
more let their artistic talents die because they simply
don't have time--they allow work and other obligations to
become much more important than their creativity and
talent.
It's
been said from ancient times: I don't want to reach
the day of my death and find out that I never really
lived. But that's what most of us do. And when
someone realizes earlier than their death that they have
let important parts of themselves die and then try to
reclaim some of those forgotten parts of themselves, we
call it a midlife "crisis"--a negative term that
casts an awful shadow on the idea of trying to live while
we're alive.
I'm
not sure that these parts of ourselves actually die for
good--I believe it's more like they're stuffed in the back
of a closet and never fed or nourished again while we
focus on other things. But they may as well be dead
if we leave them there and never utilize them again.
How many beautiful things never will come into this world
because people have pushed aside their talents and
abilities?
Many
children share many poems and drawings and songs with
their parents and other adults, but how many adults share
such things with kids? We can't if we've allowed our
talents to die or be put away, can we?
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