"Screaming at Life"

I wanted to include some wise words from Jeff Cothren (check out his blog "Syndesmotic Soul Mania") from a posting titled "patience";

While there is much to be said for desire, for pushing oneself, for battling through life, there is as much to be said for biding one's time, for allowing the appropriate moment to reveal itself, for letting life speak to you instead of screaming at life.

His words struck a cord for me, and seemed to fit with how I have been feeling lately regarding my efforts to "live in the moment". It reminded me of a piece I posted in July ("As The Crow Flies"), around how without provocation or any effort "life" spoke to me through a rather irate crow one morning when I went to the store with my son. It was a seemingly small event that spoke volumes to me about being open to wonder.*

I think we do a lot of "screaming at life" in our culture, and it has become a necessary and subversive act these days to slow life down and look and listen to what is going on around us, especially in our immediate context. We have a lot of information at our fingertips, from pretty well anywhere in the world at any given time, yet we hardly know our neighbours or have the time to walk and breath in the air around us.

This is a reoccurring (and rather obsessive) theme for me, and I will definitely be exploring this on an ongoing basis. Thanks Jeff for you inspiring words and for the thoughtful exchange we had.

*Note: the legend of the crow has grown considerably, even for my other son who wasn't present for the original event - we check the tree everytime we go back to that same store and it is now affectionately referred to as the "crow store" .