An ineffable state of being

For many years, my personal emails have included the phrase "It's the being, not the doing" below my signature. This has served as a reminder to me — more so than the recipients of those emails — that life is about being, and not about what we accomplish.

We're human beings, after all.

I will be the first to admit that this reminder often went unheeded. For the majority of my "career" — if you can use that term to describe a myriad of jobs doing assorted tasks — I have been a workaholic. From the instant I woke in the morning until I crawled into bed at night, I was always doing, whether for my employers or my family. Even in moments of "leisure" I would park myself at a desk, creating bits of fiction, driven until I jotted the final sentence on the notepad or, later, a computer screen.

So it is with many people — religious included — in this 21st century. Just a glance around, wherever we live, shows us how much must be done to alleviate the suffering of the poor, the homeless, the children, the immigrants — and on and on. We spend ourselves in service to others, and forget about simply being.

But we can't forget that aspect of life; we shouldn't forget.

Living on Vancouver Island the past few months, as contemplative-in-residence at the Brandt Oyster River Hermitage, I have had time to remember that being is the most important part of life. In the midst of these 28 acres of woodlands, with the rapids creating a soothing background of natural music — not to mention the birds and animals adding their distinctive voices to the mix — I have been able to let go of my attachment to work. Though I still lend my skills to a number of projects on a remote basis, those tasks are not the focus of my days. I have put such efforts into proper perspective.

Perhaps the weeks when it rained almost every day — heavy rains, too — helped me achieve this new perspective. I sat at the window and watched nature react to the winds and the wetness. I listened as the river's level rose and the flow of water over the rocks grew more enthusiastic (or, possibly, violent). There was no need to fight the situation, though the recurring gloominess was rather annoying. 

The brief glimpses of sunlight during breaks in the clouds were all the more appreciated.

A contentment claimed my soul, proof that we humans don't have to be bustling about through the days — that nature can do and has existed without us for millennia. In fact, what we humans have done in our quest for knowledge has nearly destroyed our environment.

If we'd been satisfied with simply being — living in harmony with nature and the other occupants of the planet — we might not be facing such a tenuous future.