getting high

as the facilitator of the gathering got us to reflect and chart the highs and lows in our life and spiritual life, i found myself pondering over how highs are perceived and misunderstood in our modern life overloaded with information and entertainment.

to quote nick hornby in high fidelity, "maybe we all live life at too high a pitch, those of us who absorb emotional things all day, and as a consequence we can never feel merely content; we have to be unhappy or ecstatically head-over-heels happy."

perhaps the modern and post-modern man are junkies seeking thrills and larger and larger amounts in order to achieve the temporal high, to disguise a deep seated lonliness and emptiness.

just boredom? or maybe there's something more to it.

so the counter action to this phenomenon is the new-age moment collectively fashionable as zen, meditation & solitute, where people are encouraged to declutter & detox.

i encourage decluttering our physical, mental and spiritual lives not in the manner that zen advocates, but rather (from a christian bias view that) meditation should be on God and the word of God. how is that done? this post does not seek to address the how.

this rather is the crux of the post - that even christian spiritual activies can be cluttered and sensationalized, so much so that some church-going people immerse themselves with "christian thrills" in larger and larger quantities in order to achieve a "spiritual high".

so as we chart out highs and lows of the year, especially in the spiritual context, be on your guard to avoid searching for "the next big thing" in a secular manner in your walk with God.

this leads on to another issue, how then can we avoid seeking sensations and at the same time avoid stagnating in our spiritual lives?

being still before God is not a passive endeavour, in fact it takes more effort. it is also to have the peaceful assurance and serene faith whenever we face a crisis of belief. i think this is the real test of your spiritual walk as well as opportunities of its growth - how we react in times of trouble.

and i'll go out on a limb to say that the thrill seeking junkies will face their day of reckoning on the day of crisis.