Distraction

Several people in my circle have recently expressed intentions to rid themselves of stuff, to find again the source of inspiration, to simplify their lives, to get back to the basics, to minimize distractions. Hearing this, images rise in my head. One is that of swimming against a powerful current in a raging torrent. That, you might say, is a good image of life. We are engaged in a passage, and it is difficult. We don’t want to be encumbered. We don’t want our strokes to be impeded by heavy clothing, clunky shoes. We don’t want to carry stuff that turns our arms and legs to lead. We don’t want a vestibule filled with soaked clothing strapped to our back. Swimming against this current, we want to see strong branches where we can pause, firm places where we can rest. We want to reach that blessed yonder shore and not be swept away, away, away.

Our view of reality might be inverted. This came to mind the other day when I saw a poem quoted on Siris (here) by Christina Rossetti. It has two stanzas. One begins with “Man’s life is death.” The other with “Man’s death is life.” The context is Christ’s redemptive work—which is, of course, centrally relevant. Every religious and spiritual system counsels a kind of minimalism. We must do what we must do—but we must never do more than we must. The urge to simplify, the call of the Silence (wherein the still small voice is heard), that is the real call of Life. The vast turbulence of modern life—but ancient life was not really different—is the sound of fragmentation, the raw gravitational pull of the lower dimensions of darkness—however loud they shout, however bright they glitter.

Me, too, as it were. I too intend it more than I manage to do it. There is an old Jewish phrase: “The master of return.” The master or mistress of return is the person who, endlessly failing in the chosen task nevertheless, after each failure, returns to the effort once again. Not the last time that we make strong resolutions to clean up our act. We’re journeying through the valley of the shadow of death; we long for still waters and green pastures. Even in the midst of this turbulence of endless…distraction.