“We live in a society whose whole policy is to excite every nerve in the human body and keep it at the highest pitch of artificial tension, to strain every human desire to the limit and to create as many new desires and synthetic passions as possible” – Thomas Merton
May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. – Psalm 19:14
I watched a TV show last week which encouraged an over-worked doctor to take time to lay on the grass and look at the sky. Since then, I’ve made that a goal of mine. I’m like that, reading about something I should do or seeing something I like in another, then I pick it up and try to put it on myself, like a hermit crab decorating my shell with everything I find. It usually works – getting me into medical school, making me a great doctor who can balance all sorts of guidelines and accommodating a bunch of personality types. But it can be overwhelming, disorienting. Turns out the goal to run a marathon wasn’t right for me, not for now at least. But laying on the grass – how bad can that be? Turns out I am allergic to lots of grass, I get terrible hives as soon as I plunk down. And my skin is not the type that I can be in the sun for long. So I can lay on the grass while completely covered with clothing, I think that defeats the purpose of laying in the grass. But isn’t it funny that I try anyway? I hope in the future, I can do things more in a way consistent with how I was made, what makes me tick. Like reading while listening to a water fountain on the porch. Like sitting on a bench beside that grass.