The Challenge of Staying Engaged

I really like the idea of staying engaged in life.  It seems wonderful in a kind of abstract theoretical construct.  I want to live my life, to be an active participant.  I want to be constantly aware of what Father is saying and doing, to be deeply involved in the lives of loved ones.  I hate the idea of being a passive spectator simply watching life pass me by.

But on a Tuesday evening after a frustrating day of work filled with mindless tedium, annoying people, and stupid questions that waste much of my time?  Or talking through a difficult life/relationship issue?  Or facing one of life's inevitable disappointments after daring to get my hopes up once more? 

I'm sorry, but I often check out.  The medium doesn't matter - it can be TV, a book, video games, whatever.  It's just . . . easier.  So much easier than staying engaged.  So much easier than working to see something good in the midst of an incredibly tedious, frustrating work day.  So much easier than poking and prodding at some deep hurt to find real healing instead of a quick fix.

I mean, I'm going so far as to get "This is Water" tattooed on my chest (soon I hope) in order to remind myself of the importance of finding true life in the day-to-day grind.  But still, time after time, I find myself sitting back and letting my eyes glaze over as I disengage.  I virtually fast forward through the boring/monotonous/frustrating/slow/tiresome periods by daydreaming or fantasizing about a much more interesting life.

So this is the challenge: not necessarily to make something better, but to see the good in what is there.  To try, to make the effort, to persevere in searching for what is wonderful and lovely, hidden as it may be within the mundane and undesirable.

I'm moving forward with the basic premise that my eyes do deceive me, that I am blind and senseless to much of what the God of Love is doing around me.  A paradigm shift may very much be called for here.  I may need to stop calling certain things "bad" or being so narrow-minded in what I call "good".  I may need to be open to a correction of vision, a new pair of glasses to see life through.

And I do admit, I tend to be a bit of a pessimist and cynic.  It's easy to say life taught me to be that way, but that's the poor excuse of a weak man.  I'm not pretending that changing how I see things will be easy.  It's not a switch I can simply turn on. 

But I'm beginning to believe that it must be worth the effort.  The alternative seems unbearable, that this gray world full of gray days is all there is.  I do not believe that to be true. I have seen sparks of color, beams of sunshine.

"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."