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Blog 514 – 01.04.2016

Distractions
There are many distractions in this life to keep us from focusing on what is really important. I would like to write about two of them – The cares of this life and the deceitfulness of riches. Some of my friends are confused by my constant references to the Bible and especially the teachings of Jesus. Don’t be, though I no longer claim to be a Christian I see things everywhere that make some sense to me and many that do not. Someone has said it is difficult to teach someone with a hungry belly. Those who are worried about their next meal or the several they have missed do not have much use for philosophy or education. It is only after satisfying the basic needs, food, water, clothing, and shelter that people have time or much desire to think of much else.
Once the basic necessities of life are satisfied other cares and considerations come in to play. Sex is a very powerful drive in our lives and can cause us a great deal of distraction. Misunderstandings and some unhealthy beliefs about sex are at the heart of a lot of our problems in life. Because of some incomplete information from her middle school peers an eleven year old Scout in the book Go Set A Watchman thinks French kissing causes pregnancy. Learning this only after she has started her periods and after a boy had slipped his tongue between her lips in a quick kiss of thanks for her helping him make a C minus in geography, the new erroneous information sends Scout’s mind crashing into despair. She will shame her family in eight months when the baby arrives. She can talk to no one she is so ashamed and so she climbs the town watertown intending to jump and spare her family the disgrace. A neighbor boy sees her and climbs the tower and forces her to come down. When he realizes that she wasn’t just up there for a thrill he takes her home. He tells the family’s black housekeeper who has raised Scout and she gets the whole story out of Scout and then she corrects the young girl’s thinking. How many lives have been lost or ruined by such misunderstandings. Many well meaning people have put out tons of misinformation regarding sex causing people to be ashamed and tormented for no reason but ignorant beliefs that have little basis in fact. Another very closely related concern is romantic love. There is so much malarkey regarding courting and coupling that it is a wonder anyone stays sane with all the crazy misguided expectations people have of “true love.”
I should at least touch on the second big distraction for most if not all of us – the deceitfulness of riches. That money has some importance in life is widely accepted. Even beyond the basic necessities money is needed for just about anything that makes modern life fun, exciting, or worthwhile. The two great lies or deceits regarding riches are first that there is not enough to go around and secondly that an adequate pile is all one needs for protection and happiness. There is plenty, more than enough and secondly life is far more than what we possess or what money can buy.
But why the distractions what is it he/she/it, ole ego, wants to keep us from seeing clearly, of feeling fully, of knowing as well as we are known? Why, Who, and What we really are of course. Ego is a counterfeit, a lie, an illusion and that is all he deals in, slight of hand, distractions, anything to keep your focus off the true you. A consise discription of who we truly are is: “I am here to be loved, and to love for I am lovable, I am loving, I am altogether lovely. I am love, cut out of the same cloth.” And that, my dears, is the long and the short of it. Don’t be distracted for there is some serious living and loving to do and that is why we are here.
Your friend and fellow traveler,
David White