Finding The Center

Most peo­ple feel like they are on the out­side look­ing in. Famil­iar celebrity faces float across the screen. The line between pol­i­tics and show busi­ness has long dis­ap­peared. A cer­tain level of pop­u­lar­ity must be obtained and main­tained to stay in the game. What­ever it takes is what­ever it takes to stay above the line of anonymity. Say or do some­thing out­ra­geous occa­sion­ally. That will get the cam­eras back on you, but what­ever you do, do not fall below the line. Get to the cen­ter ring of the three ring cir­cus — no mat­ter the price.

Are we all merely observers? Are we still so stuck in the ancient Greek leg­ends that, like them, fame is our only mea­sure of immor­tal­ity? Of the bil­lions of foot­prints on the sands of time, must ours be rad­i­cally dif­fer­ent and notice­able to oth­ers in order to be sig­nif­i­cant? If we are all try­ing to live on the atten­tion of oth­ers, are there any left to do the admir­ing?

It is a pretty empty pur­suit. The cen­ter is not a stage, nor some city, nor any place other than our own hearts. Look­ing for the cen­ter out­side of our­selves is a form of per­sonal dis­dain and aban­don­ment. If it takes admir­ing looks and sounds from oth­ers to affirm us, what has hap­pened to our inner life? Have we traded our walk with the unseen God for the vis­i­ble hope of a mere fif­teen min­utes of fame?

You can­not find your hap­pi­ness through some­one else. That is an unfair bur­den placed upon them. They may walk beside you on the jour­ney through life, but if they are your cen­ter, you will lose your heart when they die or move on. Inte­ri­or­ity is con­sid­ered self­ish. How ironic! Lov­ing God and neigh­bor can­not hap­pen unless lov­ing self is also cen­tral. Self-abandonment spreads to the aban­don­ment of oth­ers too.

The cen­ter of the uni­verse is right where you are right now. Real­ity is holo­graphic. The cen­ter is in all places at the same time. God comes to you right in the few square feet you presently occupy. There is no need for some dis­tant quest. The eter­nal inter­sects the tem­po­ral wher­ever you may be right now. The cen­ter is the inter­nal dia­logue between the finite and the infi­nite. That’s right! God is just as con­cerned about lit­tle old you as any­one else in history.