Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
The above topic gave me the opportunity for a powerful meditation this morning. See, I’m about to enter into my sabbatical, so over the last 30 days or so, I’ve been reflecting a lot more than usual on my years of prior service, and on my upcoming “laying fallow”. Over the last 8-9 years I’ve had the opportunity to connect with, observe, counsel, and interface with a lot of individuals and groups within Colorado’s Front Range pagan community, and over that time, I’ve noticed something:
The talk-to-action ratio is very askew, and favors talk.
We get caught up in social assumptions, round after round of the “what if” game, and “devil’s advocate”, my personal favorite in a religion that’s allegedly got nothing to do with Christianity… what with all these talk-heavy, mental-masturbatory theories strewn about it’s a surprise we’ve left ourselves any space to achieve any action-oriented results at all…
… and this problem isn’t exclusive to pagan-minded folx. No, the talk-to-action ratio is off for many people in today’s world.
In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the young Danish prince say to his BFF, Horatio, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” (Hamlet (1.5.167-8)) What Hamlet was saying to his loyal, usually pragmatic friend was this: philosophizing and theorizing are great, but we miss out on SO much when that’s all we do. All the theories and logic-games are certainly fun, and they leave us with a sense that we actually DID something… but they’re fun because they’re safe and in a vacuum. They’re unrealistic and safe..
… very much the opposite of quotidian reality.
(See y’all tomorrow)
The talk-to-action ratio is very askew, and favors talk.
We get caught up in social assumptions, round after round of the “what if” game, and “devil’s advocate”, my personal favorite in a religion that’s allegedly got nothing to do with Christianity… what with all these talk-heavy, mental-masturbatory theories strewn about it’s a surprise we’ve left ourselves any space to achieve any action-oriented results at all…
… and this problem isn’t exclusive to pagan-minded folx. No, the talk-to-action ratio is off for many people in today’s world.
In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the young Danish prince say to his BFF, Horatio, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” (Hamlet (1.5.167-8)) What Hamlet was saying to his loyal, usually pragmatic friend was this: philosophizing and theorizing are great, but we miss out on SO much when that’s all we do. All the theories and logic-games are certainly fun, and they leave us with a sense that we actually DID something… but they’re fun because they’re safe and in a vacuum. They’re unrealistic and safe..
… very much the opposite of quotidian reality.
(See y’all tomorrow)
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