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Today's
Meditation:
It's very easy to get caught up in our
histories. It's very easy to talk about where we've
been and what we've done and all those things that are
over now. It's a bit more difficult, though, to
focus on what we're doing now, what we're adding to our
life experiences on any given day. It isn't as
common to hear people talking about where they are in
life, what's going on with them and how things are
going. All of these things are the results of what
we've done in the past, yet for some reason we don't talk
about the results, just the causes.
I've always been a bit perplexed when I walk around
European towns and cities. It seems that most of
them are doing all they can to maintain things like
thousand-year-old churches and cathedrals, yet there isn't
a lot of focus on getting new things done today. I
never got a strong feeling of who the Spanish people are
today as a result of the cultures of the past-- instead,
the people are content to continue to market their pasts
without adding much in the way of new.
This focus on the past is understandable-- they make a lot
of money off of the historical monuments-- but
puzzling. These monuments don't say much about the
lives that the people are living today, but they remain
sources of pride, in much the same way that Americans talk
about football or baseball teams from decades ago.
But what do we do with these things, other than function
as passive bystanders? What have I done with the
time I've lived in different places, if I haven't learned
and grown from them? How have I bettered myself
through my experiences? It's one thing to talk about
what we've gone through, but quite another to make sure
that we do something with the places we go, and recognize
and appreciate what we learn from those places. Who
we become in life depends on how we use our experiences--
and hopefully, we use them for growth and
learning.
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