Enough

Written by St. Jude

Maybe it’s enough to just feel the sun on a given day, or feel the rain bouncing off our bodies. While we go about our days worried over our choices of religion and how it’s affecting our relationships with our family and with God, we become completely blind to the day and the moments that surround us.  We wrap ourselves in worry, guilt, and fear, insulating us from the very simplicity we seek--the moment we stand in. We don’t own anything in this life. Families transition as easily as the landscape of up and coming cities as well as dying ones. We can only claim two things as our own in life: The moment we are currently in and space we take up within that moment and both are in constant transition.

I have spent endless hours poring over my faith and how to define it. More often I am left to wonder if I will ever define it and if I finally do settle on a definition I can’t help but wonder if it will turn out to be nothing more than a philosophy of warm fuzzies lacking just as much basis in reality as the religion I left.  I have pored over books, googled  for answers, and spent countless hours posting on boards set up to support those who have lost their faith thinking maybe I don’t have to reinvent the wheel after all. Surely people smarter than I have already asked these questions and have found the answers I’m looking for. But after losing myself in this search for so long I realize that answers only lead to more questions, more questions to more doubt, more doubt to more unanswered questions and while the cycle becomes all-consuming, life is marching past my window without me.  This is too high a price to pay in pursuit of finding answers to things that have gone unanswered long before our being here and will go unanswered long after we leave.

Maybe for some of us our time is better spent asking the questions that have answers; What does that grass feel like on bare feet, how hot is that pavement, how tight can your child or grandchild squeeze you with the biggest hug they can give, what do rocky mountain oysters really taste like, can I do one kind thing for a stranger every day for a month, how many leaves are on the branch I look out on every morning while I enjoy my breakfast…?

Two things, that is all we have, the moment, and the space we take up within that moment. At death the moment is gone and the space we take up will only be granted to us six feet below anyone’s view. Right now the space we claim has a much better view than the one will hold when we die. So what lies within your view? What’s in the space you’re sitting in right now? Is their family? Have you really engaged them today? Maybe a great view out that window? What’s the temperature of air that surrounds you right now? What sounds can you hear? Is there silence? Can you feel it?  Maybe living in the moment, asking questions that you can find answers to, is where we find God. If not, the very worst we can do is find ourselves.

I’m sure there are plenty of people who will read this and argue the importance of asking the difficult questions and the nobleness of a life spent in pursuit of those answers. If you are enjoying your journey, then who can fault you? But simple as it may seem, I have found answers to questions I didn’t know I was asking by asking the questions I could find answers to. For me, this is a much more enjoyable journey. Now, if nobody objects I’m heading outside to see if the clouds have cleared, the temperature has dropped, and can I see the stars tonight.