What are Our Lives About?

In some ways this is an obvious question. All day long we live out the things that our lives are about – friends, family, interests, work, our physical and emotional exercises to strengthen ourselves.

But in my experience there are deeper issues working in each of us that don’t usually get touched on in daily life. Traumas, fears, anxieties, patterns of relating to others and to our own life that are problematic. The possibility of pain, illness, loss. The reality of death.

For me it is so important to have space and time in my life for these deeper issues. To me that means retreat. It means meeting and talking and inquiring and listening regularly with others – in a setting that is quiet, open, deep, and honest. So these are the purposes that I see for our group here.

Unfortunately our lives are very busy and the surface activities tend to take up nearly all of our time. That’s the nature of them. They tend to preclude deeper listening. That’s the nature of modern life. It’s as though it wants to hide the deeper issues. To protect itself – to protect us -from them.

We need a little bit of help to once in a while devote time to what is going on in us more deeply. We can help each other. In this group we do that by coming together about once a month for a couple hours or so of deeper listening, not knowing what will come up. We do it by having an annual 7 day retreat devoted to this deeper listening.

How else can we help each other so that there is at least a little bit of time made in our lives for what most deeply needs attention? I don’t know. If you consider this question and can communicate about it, we can begin to find ways that the group can serve this need.

One thing is clear. If we don’t seriously consider what are lives are about and how to open more deeply, the patterns and habits of daily life will see to it that those depths are rarely touched. We’re all in this same speedboat so can we put our energies together to start finding a way to support what we each need to do?