When I'm in the Great Outdoors, life makes so much sense. Rather than feeling small, I sense that I'm an integral part of the greater Whole. There, my capacity for making meaning - for theologizing, doing meditation practice and acting as a vessel for Beauty to celebrate herself through me - blazes in all of its exuberant intensity. By contrast, I find society more difficult to navigate. Our culture's institutions, hierarchies, cliques, frenetic busyness, its compulsive marketing mentality and its personality cults seem antithetical to the life of the Spirit. And yet we all must dwell there, make a living, pay bills, find those who resonate with us, learn how to deal with those who do not, and wrestle with our own socially-induced shadow side. It seems the best mode of living is to move back and forth between the two contrasting realms: between time spent in the Great Outdoors on the one hand, and daily life moving about within society on the other, thereby seeking to integrate the two opposites into a single whole.
What is YOUR way of dealing with the challenges that life in society bring you?
Photo: (Top) Queen's Crown growing on the edge of Sky Pond, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, August 15, 2015; (Middle) Colorado Columbines blooming on the shore of Snow Lake, Never Summer Range, CO, August 4, 2015; (Bottom) Rosy and Western Yellow Paintbrush growing next to Saint Louis Lake, near Fraser, CO, August 8, 2015
Photo: (Top) Queen's Crown growing on the edge of Sky Pond, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, August 15, 2015; (Middle) Colorado Columbines blooming on the shore of Snow Lake, Never Summer Range, CO, August 4, 2015; (Bottom) Rosy and Western Yellow Paintbrush growing next to Saint Louis Lake, near Fraser, CO, August 8, 2015
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