It’s a privilege being surrounded by intelligent, spiritual people who use their abilities and energies to become even more well-read, well-rounded, and whole. I think it’s a great thing when people who live in such advanced and comfortable circumstances use the stuff of their blessing for personal and social increase. I’m reminded of Jesus’ parable of the talents, and how the fellow who buried his talents ended up with less than nothing. I’m most afraid of playing the harlot with my abilities, talents, energies, and time rather than investing my Self where she can bear much fruit.
This morning, one of the intelligent, spiritual people I’m privileged to know and love said something that made me laugh out loud because it was so honest and human. We were discussing greatness and mastery, subjects that have been on our respective minds lately. She said that now she hopes merely to be a good Self: whole, accountable, a good wife, a good mother. But in the past, she recounted, when she was less developed and more unaware,
“I thought it would be good if I died famous, or great, . . . or at least envied.”
I guffawed when she said “. . . at least envied,” because she had captured the vanity and wrong-headedness of humanity when she said these words. Why is it, I’ve wondered, that we refuse over and over and over again to go deep into that inner city, the City of God, the only place where we can find home, hearth, temple, and palace and live authentic lives? Why do we waste ourselves on what doesn’t profit, on what’s useless, on what’s not helpful? Why do we externalize everything of intrinsic value–selling our birthrights for a mess of pottage?
