stuff i think

thoughts on being...

Pardon me while I wax philosophic this morning. I've got a lot on the brain - albeit of a broad range in the quality department, but a lot none the less. I've been reading a few passages and thinking of the essense of man. The question is not "what makes a person tick?" but "Why do they tick at all?"

More often than not, we justify or explain our existence by what we produce: "I am entitled to my .35 acre on earth and the oxygen I consume based on what I make/say/think/do." As of 6:27 AM, I think that's a little whacked.

The universality of the question is astounding - why do I exist? Even while breaking their backs eeking out a physical existence, people are yearning for a hard-wired connection to transcendency. Whether it comes out of the brokenness of defeat or the shallowness of success, everyone ponders "What was I made for?"

Men conduct all sorts of spiritual experiments trying to sort this out. The painters paint, the poets write, the wheelers deal and the preachers preach - all to varying degrees of satisfaction, but essentially no degree of success. In nearly every case, the essence of their concocted reply is this: I exist because I do.

All fond feelings for participation aside, if it is true that we exist because we do, then our existence hinges our ability to continue to do so. So long as we paint, write, deal or preach, we live. The first moment that we have no inspiration, POOF, we are no more.

What a dreadful existence - to have to produce (or attempt to do so) every moment we're alive. It would put us all in this great existential sweat shop, chiseling out transcendency by going about our busy-ness. We all become busy-ness man, believing that busy-ness is good. It strikes me as the mantra of the worker bee, puttering to and fro to build the sweet comb at any cost, because if that comb is no longer built, we will no longer be. They are all living on borrowed time, trying to pay off some strange high interest comb loan.

Existence - essential validity - cannot spring from a value of contribution or even participation, because that leaves no room for the existence of those who, by physical handicap or philisophical shallowness, live live as spectators. Being by doing is a young man's game, ill equipped to deal with those who cannot or do not do.

Being must hinge...no, be built on....something more universal, more kind, more profound, more available to the marginalized. All must hold being, or those who presume to will dominate those who presume not to. If being is at our core, then it pre-existed. We did not 'do' it, but rather we were overcome by it when we appeared on the scene.

Revelation 4:11
You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things and by your will they were all created and have their being.

Being is not something we do, but rather something done to us. Our passive souls spring into existence at the word of the King of the Universe. As the poets of Athens had said, "In Him we live, and move, and have our being."

More thoughts later. For now, try this: When your co-worker says "good morning", reply "it's good to be here"....and understand for a second what that means.