Don't just sit there, do something.
Sitting around idly in my childhood was frowned upon because laziness, as it was thought to be, was not tolerated. If you weren't actively doing something, you were of no apparent worth. My Grandfather told me that daydreaming was a waste of time and action was what the world needed. According to him, it didn't matter what you felt or thought as long as you did something that contributed to the solution. While it is rewarding to do something meaningful, I noticed that my mental and emotional state affected my actions. If I was tired, angry, or low on resources, I brought those feelings into my actions. I never heard my Grandfather talk about feelings or inner awareness, just action. As my spiritual life began to unfold and I spent more time sitting still to access my quiet mind, and my Grandfather's voice in my head began to insist that spiritual practice was a way to shirk my duty and avoid societal obligations.
Being in the world, but not of it.
My Grandfather feared that sitting still would cause me to become idle and to withdraw from the world, but I did neither. Instead, I began to take responsibility for the tone and attitude with which I engaged, whether that was in a conversation about disappearing species, the rights of women to govern their bodies, or any one of the red-hot topics that are littered across our 21st-century world landscape. I became more aware of when my reactive mind was running the show, dominating the conversation, or creating enemy images. My tendency to blame a topic for my unkind words began to catch my attention. It became clear how easily I could justify my pursuit of any goal at the expense of compassion, communication, and collaboration. I've had to learn to sit still with those volatile aspects of my mind, embrace them, and still find my way to the quiet realm beneath the surface mind. I've had to learn how to be in the world without being at the mercy of knee-jerk reactions.
Don't just do something, sit there too!
Now I have become my Grandfather, with a slight shift in focus. My urgent call to action includes a reminder to myself and others to sit in contemplative silence and trust that inner quiet, as they would trust a wise counselor. The truth is I can avoid my responsibility to be silent as easily as I can avoid my responsibility to act.
Now that I see that sitting in silence is the counterpart to engaging in the world mindfully, and I find there is no way to have one safely without the other.
By Rev. Edward Viljoen
Resources
Top 10 Most Important Current Global Issues - The Borgen Project
World Economic Forum - Top World Issues
Social Issues, A Blogger's Perspective
Institute for Human Rights and Business Top Ten Issues 2021
Humanitarian Efforts through Unicef
Beautiful Edward. Thank you for sharing I can relate.
ReplyDeleteLove, Justin, D.
I can relate. Thank you
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