A dialogue colleague and friend recently shared an example of this. All of the major companies have rebranded themselves: instead of longer, more formal names, we now know them as KFC, McDs, FB, or simply their logo. And with the advent of iMessaging and Twitter, we use abbreviations like: LOL, OMG and OMW.
Darcy came across the letters FOMO, and immediately thought it had something to do with the election year (Fo Mo = Four More Years). In the context it was given, though, FOMO meant Fear of Missing Out.
I wonder: do you think fear of missing out drives us to create meaning? We don’t want to be caught not knowing the meaning? We need to be seen as knowing, belonging, or being smart?
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| How often do you wait for beauty to be revealed? |
Traveling among the northern lakes of Italy, we came across a white peacock. Many of us followed it around the gardens, cameras ready, waiting for it to spread its feathers. We waited... and waited... and waited... Just when it was time to leave, its beauty was revealed as the peacock paraded before us with feathers expanded.
I wonder: do we miss True Meaning when we refuse to wait for it to be revealed?
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| When do you let the mists settle to see more clearly? |
On another trip, we were driving through the Yukon Territory. The summer had been extremely hot and dry, and the forest fires were out of control. The way to manage these remote fires... let them burn. The distant landscape was shrouded in early morning mists and the smoke which hung over the lakes and valleys. The beauty and destructiveness combined to reveal the natural cycles of life and death.
I wonder: do we accept the rhythms that define our lives?
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| Can we just stand in awe without defining it? |
How often did you and your childhood friends name the shapes you saw in the clouds passing over? There’s a dog... or an elephant... or a sheep! Even as youngsters we were seeking meaning in the abstract patterns of nature. There seems to be a desire within us to explore, to know, and to name.
By knowing and naming, though, are we seeking to brand or claim our world... to make it ours? To make it familiar? To shorten the experience into sound bites and tweets?
I wonder, though: are there times when we are called to sit with the unknown, to experience the other person without defining or adding meaning or concluding what she or he is like. Rather than, “ It is ____________ “ or “We are _________” (where we fill in the blanks), maybe our response might be: It is. We are.
May this week provide moments when:
- We don’t have to name or define every experience;
- The fear of not knowing or missing out will lessen; and,
- We learn to appreciate and value each moment as it is.
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| Larry Gardepie (click on link for website) |
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