Sunday night, we went out on the dam at Lake Joe Pool to watch the supermoon eclipse.
Some guy here in Dallas is now famous for taking this series of photos and putting it up on Facebook. (He said "please share," so I am.)
Here's what my picture of that exact same event looks like:
Doesn't life just feel like that sometimes?
We're all in the same place, looking at the same thing... but wow. Somebody else's picture looks amazing, and mine is just a blurry mess of weeds and old pavement.
We belong to a Mystery far grander than our little selves and our little time. Great storytellers and spiritual teachers always know this. The postmodern world has rejected most myths except two, and these are especially lethal for the soul and for the poor and for the future: "I produce therefore I am" and "I consume therefore I am." This will never work for the soul, but we--believers and clergy included--have drunk this fairly new version of Kool-Aid. --Richard Rohr
What is the story?
Is it this beautifully choreographed, meticulously executed, professional work of art?
Or is it the quiet breeze off the lake in the darkness, the cool after a long scorching summer, the mesmerizing slowness of the earth's shadow blanketing the moon, all observed from a patch of weeds and old pavement?
Maybe it's both. Maybe some people get to have a life that's all perfectly done.
Mine hasn't been that way, though. Much as I might want a lot of control and a beautiful facade, it just doesn't happen like that for me.
For me the story is not produce-and-consume, but be-still-and-know.
I lose track of that truth sometimes. I resist it.
I want control more than I want Love.
That is the constant battle for my soul: control or Love, Love or control.
And then I find myself lying on an old quilt, in the cool quiet dark, watching the slow progress of light and shadow, color and darkness and I hear:
Breathe.
Breathe.
Breathe.
You belong to a Mystery bigger than your little self, and your little time.
Be still.
Be still.
Be still.