Seeking
Perspective
“There
is only one thing I would suggest, and it is this. Keep a sense of
proportion. Don't overreact. See things in perspective. You will come
to realize that very few things in life are worth getting disturbed
over. If you maintain a sense of perspective, you will grow in
wisdom, depth and holiness of life.”
Sister
Mary Roman (quoted by Wayne Teasdall in The Mystic Heart)
We
live in a world of hyperbole. I don't know exactly when it started. I
don't remember Walter Cronkite doing it on the evening news. I can't
imagine him yelling at guests during interviews. But somewhere along
the way, Ricky Ricardo became the model for news reporters.
Seeing
things in perspective is passe. Nowadays, our reporters risk life and
limb to film truckloads of hooded guys firing machine guns into the
air, or stand in the middle of rain-swollen rivers to show us the
effect of extensive flooding, or drive into the eye of a tornado
just so we don't miss its incredible force. I hope they have good
life insurance. We've come to expect everything, including our news,
to be over-the-top. And if it's not, we're bored.
In
pursuit of the sacred in life, one gift is the capacity to see
reality as it is, and to see ourselves as we are without blinders.
It's okay. We aren't perfect; some of us are no longer young, and
some of us are not handsome. We are sometimes bad tempered, sometimes kind. We can acknowledge our flaws without
dwelling on them. We can recognize our abilities without arrogance.
We can keep a sense of proportion about all of it.
There
is a tradition in Catholicism that priests and nuns, bishops and
brothers carry a card with this advice from St. Teresa of Avila, “Let
nothing disturb you. Let nothing worry you. Everything is passing
away. Only God is changeless. God alone suffices.” It's not meant
to be fatalistic, only realistic. As we move through life, everything
will change. People will be born and die, countries will rise and
fall, storms will come, as will fair weather. We have an anchor and
that anchor is faith.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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