Fr. Don's Daily Reflection - July 6, 2024
Psalm 62: “In you alone is my soul at rest. My help comes from you.”
In Buddhism the ideal person is enlightened or awakened. He or she really sees things as they are. The man who lived five or six centuries before Christ, called Buddha, would be more properly called 'the' Buddha since it means the enlightened or awakened one. On a basic level we'd all do much better if we were awakened, alert. So much of our life is lived half-awake,, zombies, unaware, spectators, inert witnesses, transients sitting by the road. We're like the stereotypical fellow sitting under the awning of a small town store on a hot, lifeless afternoon, half awake.
Throughout life we're often awakened momentarily by a death, some tragedy, a momentous event in the family or among friends. We're awake for a while but soon go back to sleep, back to our more or less unconscious state, going through life like robots. Our life is often like the way we listen to a Scripture reading in church: before we know it, the reading is over and we have no idea of what was read. Instead of being in charge, we're like leaves blown about by the wind, at the mercy of whatever is happening around us, responding rather than initiating.
How unlike the psalmist who says in two different Psalms (108, 57): “My heart is ready; my heart is ready. I will awake the dawn.” Usually we're fortunate if the dawn wakes us up; the eager psalmist speaks poetically of awakening the dawn. Can't we somehow prolong those periods when we are awake and alert, alive, so that more and more of life is that way? So that the unconscious moments become fewer and fewer? So that we value and cherish the people and opportunities around us?
Psalm 27: “I believe I shall see the Lord’s goodness / in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord; be strong; / be stouthearted, and wait for the Lord!”
