Awareness, awakeness and day dreaming.
So bone fishing was my entry’ into awareness and waking up. How about you? You might be
a follower of Jesus, bible reading maniac, bible quoting, memorizing machine. You might be a sermon, book and seminar junkie. But none of those imply awakeness. My life is an example. And the whole mystic and spirituality tradition of the church proves it.
My life in the last 6 years of this journey has had some of the most incredible spiritual depth and growth I have ever experienced. Much of it due to waking up, some of it due to great pain, some of it due to engaging new patterns and practices that have helped me come to grips with how our lives are storied.
All of us live in a constructed reality; personally and socially constructed. This has been and remains the most profound and powerful insight that waking up has brought. What do I mean?
Everyday as I arise I begin the storytelling process. (this happens to be one of the reasons that doing a centering practice of some kind early in the morning is often recommended by spiritual directors….the storytelling hasn’t kicked in yet.) As I am shaving I am rehearsing. Think about it, so are you. We are rehearsing the people we are going to interact with, meet with, present to, and mentor. We are rehearsing our lines, their possible responses and our more clever rejoinders. And by the time we are done showering, shaving, dressing and jumping in the car we have already been day dreaming — rehearsing the story — for 30-60 minutes. We have part of the day already figured out and therefore already “lived” at one level.
Experts say we day dream, which is usually storytelling we are doing about what is about to play out in our world, 4-6 hours a day. That is right 4-6 hours a day. It would be great if that 4-6 hours was spent brainstorming cures for cancer, or solutions to how we can use alternative forms of energy to power our motor vehicles. But the truth is most of our day dreaming is spent constructing a picture of how we think our life will play out.
That mental rehearsing creates emotions that are manifested in our bodies, anticipations that we “wear” as body language as we enter into those already ‘programmed’ interactions, and a less than neutral playing field as we enter our day. What percentage of illnesses do Doctors claim is mentally generated – is psychosomatic?
Can you see this in your life? We are going to spend the next run of posts exploring our storied existence. It is central to waking up. It is critical to a new way of doing formation. It is the almost the sole reason for the effort in the Trek Tribe. It is the reason for the book I am currently writing.
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Daydreaming.
Friday last week saw me driving back from my cousin’s funeral. A two hour drive provides time for serious self conversation, introspection, and day dreaming. My thoughts and conversation naturally mostly centred on my cousin. Johanna died at the age of sixty five, but what made her special was that as a child at the age of four, she had contracted cerebral malaria. This left her severely mentally handicapped. Her intellect never surpassed that of a nine year old. What she did have in abundance though was concern, interest, and empathy for everybody she came to know. She was always willing to help, even though her talents and her attention span were limited.
Her possessions were sparse and humble. All she possessed basically was the mind of a child, the trust of a child, a childlike faith, and a complete dependence on the care and compassion of others. She lived her life as it came, without malice, and in living she touched so many others, bringing out the best in them! Comparing this with how the rest of us use, and misuse, the God given intellect we have been blessed with, I couldn’t help wondering – in the final analysis, who is better off?
Just a thought.