just things???
I have a good friend who has a great love of plants; he has one plant that is his favorite, not because it is the most beautiful but because it will only bloom once every five years or so. When the time comes for it to bloom he will invite over some of his friends who love plants that way he does and they have a party that revolves around the plant and stay up all night to watch it bloom. Now the plant is not all that impessive to look at, it is quite big and mostly white but it is because it only blooms once in a great while that makes it so important to him. It seems the rarer the flower the more he seems to appreciate it along with his friends. He has more beautiful flowers but since they are 'common' (so to speak) they don't catch his attention the way this one flower does.
Rarity, special-ness.....perhaps these mean the same thing as the word sacred since sacred means something set apart or out of the ordinary, something perhaps that is really seen and is experienced as sort of a doorway out of mundane reality. I suppose it is in the seeing that we can experience life in deeply moving and profound ways when we deal with world around us. Now let us go back to the plant that blooms only once in a great while; suppose this same plant bloomed six months out of the year and was very common, in other words cheap so many people could afford it......what happens? Well nothing really as far as the plant is concerned, it still blooms and and has the same flower; the difference is the way it is experienced or looked at. Because it is common it special-ness is bleached out of it and it becomes just a 'common thing'; it loses it ability to transport many people to the realm of having a sacred experience. Why does this have to happen, why is it so easy to take everything for granted that we consider common or everyday? Does this not take away a great deal of joy that we could have if we were aware of the beauty and sacredness of all things in the world; why do we have to lose something that we own before we appreciate it? There is so much joy in being present to what is in front of us, to savor its beauty, its form or taste and texture. To hear music and experience how special it is and not allow its common-place-ness to distract us from the joy that we could receive by just being aware of what music is and where it comes from and most importantly were it can lead us.
Our ability to adapt to our surroundings is a great gift since it allows up to survive the ups and downs of life but the down side is its reducing just about everything to the level of being taken for granted. I suppose the same thing is true of our loved ones; we forgot how unique each person is, we forget that we are here for a short time and that our loved ones may precede us in death. Why wait till they are gone before we start to find real joy in their smiles, humor and talents; life is rare and lasts but a short time but we can often act as if we have all the time in the world; well we don't. So begin to live, open your eyes and rejoice in life, the ups and downs and also rejoice that God is one with you in that joy but also in the pain a suffering we all go thru. The most sacred thing in the world is you and all those other unique people that fill your life be they loved ones or strangers that you meet on a daily basis. I suppose that I am really taking to myself in this since if I did not have trouble experiencing life on that level I would not be writing about it.
peace
mitch