More timeless ‘sunscreen’ tips: building ‘life’ for your years
Don’t worry about the future, don’t worry, but know that worrying is just as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing gum. The real problems in your life are probably things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blind you at 4 in the afternoon on some inactive Tuesday.
~ Everyone is free to use sunscreen (the Song of Baz Luhrmann).
Many people do not listen to biblical wisdom and it is their loss, but God knows that wisdom for living is so important that He scatters it everywhere. This is a fountain of God’s wisdom, in this humble song that performed well in the late 1990s.
Be suprised
It is better never to underestimate the capacity of life to surprise us, and not always for the better. We only need to be surprised once in a cataclysmic way and we are always wary, it seems, of the power of life to grab hold of the shortest hairs on our bodies and shake off some sense.
Being surprised and the possibilities of the same is not really about living in fear; Not at all.
It’s mainly about simply being aware that these things happen, and it seems indiscriminately. Being awake and being compassionate to those who have been hit sideways and T-bones in life is a great thing, a true blessing.
There is no lack of suffering in this dying world.
Worry: confused insanity
Jesus’ words in Matthew 6: 25-34 regarding worry and his folly are as resounding today as ever, but we can only lead that stubborn horse into the water; We can’t make him drink (and stop worrying). Only the horse can do that by itself!
The logic of worry tends to make sense to us because, well, we can do it.
However, the fact that we are able to do something does not mean that it will take us to the destination we seek. Those who worry are generally aimless. They have lost focus.
Focus is the great repairer of the old affliction of worry, and focus is a discipline.
Staying in Eternal Reality: Addressing These Previous Two
The reality is the best place. Ironically, it is the safest. Although from time to time he gives us chills by his horrible and all-too-real lucidity, he also reveals himself as a friend of the truth. But, we only know this when we venture into the unconditional experience of it, taking whatever comes, whatever comes.
Focus is the friend of reality. He stays in the moment and does not run into the past or into the future, for comfort or as a result of some other fear.
As we sip our drink from the bar at some vacation destination in the sun, reflectively sipping it, we do well to remember the moment, appreciating what it really is.
© 2010 SJ Wickham.