Mis-Placed Focus
And it wasn’t over.
Like the aftershocks of the September earthquake in Mexico the ground reverberates. An unsettled earth continues to channel turbulent energy touching lives near and far.
So it was with another friend describing a recent household disaster as we car-pooled to a meeting.
“I thought I turned off the switch, instead I turned it high.” She went out and left soup on the stove.
The scene that greeted her return home was less than welcoming. “I opened the door and there was smoke everywhere. The pot was black and the soup had burned.”
My incredulity, like the soup in the pot, had long dried up at yet another acquaintance struck by calamity. At each mention of an item requiring deep cleaning she glanced in the rear-view mirror to catch my eye. With my home undergoing renovations I was in solidarity dealing with a chaotic household. Nodding my head I muttered commiseration from the back seat.
My unspoken thought, however, was “eyes on the road” otherwise we would be the next occurring calamity, but maybe it was more of a silent warning to my friend about mis-placed focus.
The Reason for Chaos
“…these fearful so-called earth changes are actually the earth expressing itself dangerously when we have chosen not to express ourselves creatively.”[1]
Mis-placed focus is an undercurrent of chaos, like cold air confronting warm winds the inevitable happens. Survival of the species requires precise focus on essentials–food, water, air–not on the next generation smart phone or tablet or record profits. With scant attention paid to what is primary second place does not count. We can’t eat money or drink technology or breathe electronic connectedness although many feel being unplugged is about the same as not breathing. Not to say technology and money are bad, they are just indigestible. The attention they consume distracts from what is necessary: “to express ourselves creatively.”
With focus distracted from creative holistic planetary stewardship what else can we expect but: pollution, global warming, overpopulation, natural resource depletion, climate change, loss of biodiversity, deforestation, ocean acidification, ozone layer depletion, acid rain, water pollution, and urban sprawl to name a few?
Global Agitation Tells Us Something
The current chaos reflects a global agitation.
The planet speaks to our external world. God speaks to our internal world. If our species is to evolve and prosper internal and external must balance and reconcile.
At the eye of the storm, in the centre of chaos, we find a place of calm and in quietude God reveals, and not just global generalities but also personal specifics. My inkling is an underlying message delivery through the uncommon calamities manifesting in my life and the lives of friends and colleagues.
Since taking up a short-term business contract in the summer that was pre-empted by my mother’s surgery in the fall, I reduce my writing efforts. There just isn’t enough time to keep up with a suitable writing schedule. But I may have underestimated the strength of writing’s influences on my spiritual life. It has become for me a spiritual practice as deep as a devout prayer life, with every word straining to express the soul’s inner life.
And I wonder if uncommon chaos churning mirrors a soul’s distress when turned away from creative processes that bear gifts of energy and life.
To be continued (refer next post).
In what way has God used chaos to get you to focus?
[1] Williamson, Marianne. Illuminata – Thoughts, Prayers, Rites of Passage. (New York: Random House, Inc., 1994