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| Somewhere in Kenya |
I rode my bike eight miles this morning. My bicycle is a philosophical machine. It uses my energy and converts it into silent motion. In the silence I feel the encompassing world.
When I ride my bike I notice more. I experience, I sense, things I would otherwise miss. The white cumulus clouds were beautiful this morning against the blue sky. I stopped on my ride and took some photos. At a few points I just stopped, and saw. These stopping points were like rests in a piece of classical music. Without the stops, things tend to blur.
To produce a hell on earth, simply accept the lie that your worth is the same as your busyness. Measure yourself by all that you accomplish, and then get to work and accomplish more so as to be pleasing in the sight of others. Buy into the myth that sound is more valuable than silence. Eliminate the rests from your existence and experience constant noise.
Thomas Merton writes:
"Music is pleasing not only because of the sound but because of the silence that is in it: without the alternation of sound and silence, there would be no rhythm. If we strive to be happy by filing all the silences of life with sound, productive by turning all life's leisure into work, and real by turning all our being into doing, we will only succeed in producing a hell on earth." (Through the Year with Thomas Merton, p. 107)
