Our nature lies in movement; complete rest is death. –Pascal
The great French philosopher, Pascal, offered us this observation. The difference causes me to pause; to stop in mid-stream if you will. It is nothing short of astounding. Consider for example the difference between a river and a swamp. A swamp is, for the most part, motionless, a mass of water that is often stagnant and inhospitable for many living things. True, there is a delicate ecosystem that thrives in swamps AND they are not much suited to a human’s well-being.
Then there is the river. What a difference movement makes. A river flows, moves and purifies itself as it washes over rocks, pebbles and sand. A river is a source of life and power; we seek to capture and use this power in our dams and turbines. A river provides us life through its fresh water (or ‘sweet water’ as the ancients remind us) and a river renews all that it touches (anyone who has seen the life-giving power of the Nile River knows of what I speak); just beyond the reach of the Nile River, on both sides of its banks, lies what is not nourished by the river; there lies the desert.
We humans, like the river, must move; we are beings where movement is in our nature. We move physically, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. We are moved by our dreams and our passions. We are moved by our life’s purpose, our life’s mission – by our call. We are moved by the plans we make, the goals we set, and the achievements we seek to live into and out of.
We also know that we can easily become like swamps. We appear to have life but we are actually more dead than alive. We walk around, we breathe, we engage in activities but we are in a real sense life-less – we lack direction, we lack purpose, we are devoid of meaning, we are hopeless and some are full of despair or worse, apathy. To mix my metaphor, the fire within is flickering if not extinguished and we are full of smoke; we are choking from within.
For some this is situational. I remember being invited by the president of a company to come and help him discern why ‘morale’ was so low. What I found were people who were ‘life-less.’ In observing them for a few days I noticed that when they left the building a miracle occurred. As they approached their cars they crossed an imaginary line and went from being like a walking-dead Lazarus to being resurrected. They came to life. They laughed. Their eyes lit up. To keep our metaphor, they moved from the swamp to the river (when they came to work they moved from the river to the swamp).
How am I like the river? How am I like the swamp? Why do I choose to be swamp-like (for at times I do so choose)? What enables me to become ‘Lazarus-like’ – dead to my world? What motivates me and what enables me to be like Lazarus – to be resurrected?
Many people are alive but don’t touch the miracle of being alive. –Thich Nhat Hanh
Searcher-Seeker 