I've been thinking lately of the beauty of the real, versus the emptiness of mirage. In every area of life, it seems there is reality as provided/intended by the Creator, and there is a mirage that offers nothing more than empty illusion and unfulfilled desire.
As humans, we have innate needs/desires for many good things. Our life is spent in seeking fulfillment of these needs, and frustration and disilllusionment result when we find only mirage.
We seek God, but instead find religious systems; we desire knowledge and wisdom, but are distracted by a school system that innoculates children against the acquisition of both knowledge and wisdom; we require nourishment, but accept faux food substitutes that not only fail to satisfy, but also cause malnourishment and obesity; we want to have fun, but we end up sitting and watching others play; we want our lives to count-- to be spent for things that matter, but we end up with days nibbled away by the mundane and trivial.
For some of us-- mothers at home with children, for example-- mundane details are among the things that matter. We are creating for our children an atmosphere conducive to physical, spiritual, and mental growth. Beyond that, we must be aware of time-stealers so that we have time to embrace reality, and are not deceived into accepting a mirage.
There is so much more to think about, but the essence of my thought for today is that there is solid truth and reality behind life's mirages. You don't have to settle for an unfulfilled life-- you can go beyond to the solidly satisfying reality of life as it can be.
I'll write more about this at some point, but in the meantime, you may want to read "Making Time For Things That Matter," an article that addresses living realistically every day. I also recommend reading anything by C.S. Lewis- a man who illuminates reality in a way few others ever have.
The argument of Reality vs. Mirage is not a new one. Nor is it limited to Christianity. Plato wrote about the idea of a perfect heavenly incarnation of which all earthly incarnations are merely imperfect shadows. The argument also incompasses the idea of innate knowledge, the idea that we intuitively know things that we cannot see or properly duplicate. This is strongly argued when Socrates showed that Meno's illierate and unlearned servant understood the Pythagorian Theorum. This theorum is ultimately conceptual, as we are unable to reproduce a perfect right-angle triangle. Human beings have always striven for ultimate truth, but through pride and other self-serving motivations have replaced these truths with half-truths and falsehood. Real Truth can be hard to find, but once found it demands a response. It is an individual thing, and as such in antithetical to government and religion, whose main objective is self preservation and control, and these are threatened by true enlightenment. And so in our modern era, we blithly ignore facts and realities that do not conform with new "enlightenment" ideas. We destroy education, true individuality, culture, and we ridicule the Truth as ridiculous and archaic.
ReplyDeleteCraig Campbell