April 26, 2007 Newsletter

Good morning - it's not pouring rain and I can hear some birds, therefore I can appropriately greet you with those words! I'm picturing a scene from June 1, 2000 with Stu and I nearing the end of a back-packing trip near Ely, Minnesota. We were spending the entire morning at a little quaint used bookstore in the north woods. He purchased a book (now out of print) that he encouraged me to read this week. I've always loved the book - just sitting daily near me, for I have sentimental attachment to it. The exact half-hour that he purchased his treasure, my father died in a farm accident here in Aurora. I always picture us in the little book shop, while simultaneously, unbeknownst to me, chaos at the farm here in Aurora that would affect the rest of my life. Needless to say, this particular book has always held sentimental value to me. And now I treasure not only the tangible book, but the writings from this author, Irwin Edman. The essay that I am reading this week is entitled The Undistracted and there are so many different paragraphs I could type to you, I'm not sure which to pick. I'll type a few thought-provoking quotes of the author having a vision of a discussion with Plato.

...I had been wondering why there are so many few undistracted people in the world - a saint here, a fanatic there, a conqueror there. But most people are lethargic or hysterical. They are a cave of whirling winds, or they are dead calms. They are confusedly excited about everything, and they have clear dedications to nothing at all. They are promiscuously tempted by anything, or they love nothing deeply, or dearly, or well...noncommittal. You say (speaking to Plato) you are undistracted...but what makes, what made, you so undistracted in your own time?...I suspect private life was just as filled with crises and disappointments in your time as in ours. You must have seen how others, or you yourself, perhaps, were distracted by a growing faintness or weariness in your own soul, by the seductions or the frustrations or the fatuities of the flesh. You saw wars..."

Plato responded, "Only those are distracted who live in time; those only are undistracted who live in eternity. For they only can be anxious who live in the suspense of a future sought for precariously and cared for uneasily. It is only in time that there is hope, uncertainty, expectation. Only in time is there a future in which expectation can be disappointed, in which uncertainty can swell into disaster, and dreams become corrupted by actuality. Only those who live beyond time are exempt from distraction."

The author then begins another vision now with Marcus Aurelius (author of Meditations) Their discussion on distraction reads,
"...Busy yourself with few things, and you will be tranquil..." "Well, it isn't as easy as that, for there aren't quiet spots to retire to any more, and no matter how one withdraws from events, they impinge themselves upon us...I always admired you, Marcus...for with all the vexations and disappointments of a conscientious and devoted life as an emperor and a husband and a father, you remained serene and calm and unconfused." "I have watched many generations since my own time...I am convinced that those alone are undistracted who do whatever they have to do with all their might, and live fully to the extent of their powers, like an eye that sees, a fire that burns, a flower that blossoms. Turn inward; examine your own nature, and if you find out what it is that you are, and if you do that which the nature of things meant you to be and do, you will not be distracted any more. There are eternal cycles and there is nothing new under the sun. Now, as in my time, if all goes wrong, or seems to go wrong, it cannot be disastrous to a free spirit, nor can the excitement of success or the images bred of passion be distracting to an independent mind."

The author then goes on for another 50 pages to have vision and dialogues with St. Paul and various philosophers and authors of humanities. If you are interested in his books - they were written in the 1940s and extremely thought-provoking. You will have to go on-line to find used copies. This week with the gloomy, rainy weather, it was easy for our minds to get "distracted" - to look at our lives and personal circumstances and begin putting life out of perspective, losing our visions, straying from our goals. We must make personal daily, weekly, monthly, and life-time goals. We must keep them accessible, and keep focused on what is eternal. We must drop constantly to our knees, we must look upwards to the heavens daily, where our help comes from. Go take on the day, my friends. Life is important. Our decisions are important. We do not want our minds to be as Plato above described, "whirling winds, or dead calms" - but ordered, prayerful, looking outward, looking forward. May God bless your week. Thank you for dealing with the construction mess! Susan