Sitting in Sunlight on a Cool Morning

Life if full of striving.  Striving to find the perfect job, the perfect house, the perfect neighborhood, the perfect car.  Striving to be promoted.  Striving to be better at something.  Striving to grow. Striving to shrink.  Striving to impress.  Striving to raise children.  Striving to earn.

I once heard a woman say the she and her husband lived in the wrong zip code and would have to move soon if they wanted to succeed at their jobs.  I remember a time when all of our County Commissioners attended the same, large, prosperous church; as if going to the "right" church was a political necessity.  I also remember a man who attended church for the purpose of selling insurance and when he had tapped that congregation for all he could squeeze, he move on.  I overheard a student talking as she walked with a friend about how her father could not succeed at his job because he did not like to schmooze.  In her words he did not have his "politics together".

And where has all of this striving gotten us?  Are we better people now than we were 1,000 years ago?  Have we had fewer wars and conflicts?  Do we know the secret of world peace?  Are fewer people starving? 

Georg Sheehan, in his book Running and Being, quotes the philosopher Teilhard de Chardin as saying, "We are all seeking not to enjoy more or to know more, but to be more."  Well, I think we may have failed on all counts.  After all these hundreds of  years of striving, we are not one inch closer to solving the large problems that face humanity.

So, instead of striving, why don't we make time to just sit in the sunlight on a cool morning and enjoy the sound of the birds, smell the freshness of the air, drink that first cup of coffee and watch the steam rise from the cup.

And on a morning such as that, how could we be more.