Is there something more?

After a wonderful few days camping in the mountains with my family I arrived home. I was glad to be there too – no more long treks to the loo! This morning though I woke up early, and as any semblance of further sleep eluded me, I got up.

Wandering around the silent house, I was reflecting on mornings in camp and how the sound of the birds seemed so loud, and how I could hear the sound of the river from my bed as it powered over the rocks; and how soothing I found those sounds to be. I wistfully remembered the crispness of the morning air, and the gossamer mist that played over the river and seemed to disappear into the sun as I watched. And the feeling of being free and alive –  vividly alive; and if I was up early enough, feeling like I was alone in a paradise unmarred by base human activity where I could relish my uninterrupted communion with God.

And now I am home. I looked out the front door at our view of the bay, and was both saddened and thankful at the same time. Sad because it was not the river and the trees and the birds, but thankful that I at least had that small view of the expanse of God in nature.

Neat and tidy

I couldn’t help but think about how living in town, in suburbia, shapes so much of the way we think. We live in boxes – in our homes and in our minds. I look out my front door and see many other homes that are so like mine, even though their shapes and colours differ, because they are all built on a rectangle of land, all neat and tidy. Everything is neat and tidy; so prescribed. Neat little homes on tidy little blocks of land. Neat little roads and tidy little suburbs. Neat and tidy little lives, lived out in relative obscurity, all doing the same thing – aspiring to raise our children to live tidy little lives in the boxes we constrain ourselves to.

We train them as we ourselves have been trained, to desire a neat and tidy home in a neat and tidy suburb and to spend our existence pursuing that endeavour. We measure our success in life based on our ability to achieve that neat and tidy desire, and our lives are mostly lived out in a vacuum created by that desire.

Every now and again we slip and let an unprotected thought through – what if there’s something more? The flash of brilliant colour from a rosella may drop our guard for just a moment, or the warmth of the sun on our face as we breathe in the sea air and bathe in the sound of the waves.

But what if there’s something more? What if our existence was meant to be more than neat and tidy? Is it possible that our lives could be anything other than driven by our prescribed thinking? What if we dared to live outside the boundaries we have set for ourselves in our minds?

Keeping it safe

Even the way we do Christianity has become prescribed so we can fit it into our neat and tidy little lives. We go to church on Sunday, sing some songs, give some money, listen to a talk and go home until the next Sunday; or if we’re really dedicated, then we’ll meet on Wednesday night for a bible study. We all know the form. We all know the rules. We all know the theory. But do we know God?

Have you ever considered that the system we have developed over the years in order to serve God has now become that which we serve? And that it has created a built-in safety net called ‘the clock’ in case God wants to show up and shake us out of our comfort zone; out of our safe place of uniformity and conformity?

To study the Word of God without the confining filter of prescribed thinking, and with only the Holy Spirit to guide and teach us is to embark on a wild journey of epic proportions filled with mystery and the thrill of adventure and discovery.

Do we dare?

But mostly we just trudge along through life doing what we believe is the right thing to do and rarely question why we believe it or if it really is the right thing for us. Those who take the sea-change dare to believe otherwise. They examine their lives and let the fullness of such thoughts play upon their minds. They dare to believe that life can be fulfilling even when it’s different.

Most of us ignore or deny we have such thoughts, because we unconsciously recognize that it might cause us to be deemed unacceptable, or rejected. And in a neat and tidy life that is unconscionable. We marvel at what we consider madness or frivolity in those that make the sea-change, and yet a part of us secretly envies their courage to be different.

So what if there is something more? What if we dare to entertain that thought – examine it, explore it? Can we believe that not only is it possible, but permissible that life can be more than our present neat and tidy existence? Can we dare to believe that life can hold more than our wistful dreams and instead see them become the vivid reality?

In his second letter to the Corinthians in the Message translation of the bible, Paul exhorts the people:

Well I say Paul was right! Give yourself permission to consider the possibilities. Dare to imagine a more fulfilling life; to believe that not only are you capable of it, but that you are worthy of it.

Live full! Live rich!

LIVE!