When we focus on the gift, we lose sight of the giver. Similarly, when we focus on the kindness that we need, or the privilege that we claim, we lose sight of the human expected to provide it.
Harshness and brutality are meted out daily in ways that appear non-violent and even passive. But it is cloaked in emotions and customs. Cultural norms have destroyed divine wisdom, and divine instruction has become the corporal punishment of cultural compliance.
The most vile behaviour always attracts the most attention, but simultaneously offers the greatest distraction. For those who wish to get away with murder, sensationalism about anything else serves them well. The distractedness of the masses in their militant vocalisation of every injustice that they encounter feels like protest or like fighting for the cause of justice. Tragically, they don’t realise that they are simply tools to enable the distractions that allow the brutality and true oppression to charge on without meaningful resistance.
Our distraction, fuelled by sincere conviction in everything that we believe is non-negotiable feeds the cycle of control that plagues us. Rebellion must be focused if it is to yield justice. Otherwise, it simply replaces one injustice with another. But mobs don’t yield to discipline. Thus, the one who spurs on the mob is the one in control of the agenda.
The contemplation of reality aimed at making sense of at least some of it has been a tiring and often futile endeavour. It has coloured my canvas with whimsical hope and unreal fancies that imposed an expectation on some who had no idea that I existed beyond the words that I shared.
Too many take comfort without considering the comforter. Sometimes I wonder if we aren’t all equally distracted, some focused on the distractedness of others while not realising that such focus distracts them from their own purposeful convictions.
Balance is an ever engaging plight. It requires a cooperation between souls who seldom see each other equally, either in plain sight or in understanding. Love is found and lost in such moments. Seeing beauty in another while they see it not in themselves. And if they have such blindness of the self, how are they ever to see the beauty in the one who beholds them?
Life is a relentless pursuit of creating order out of chaos in the hope of finding a peaceful fulfilment that feels divinely sublime and intriguingly connected.
Faith is contradicted by its very endeavour because its endeavour spawns fears of failure which counteract faith. Yet another elusive balance.
Perhaps life is imbalance. What if balance is what bores us to search for life?
Does this resonate?