Jesus tells a story of people entrusted with a man’s livelihood. The man is going on a journey and entrusts to three people money of varying amounts. Two put it to good use. When the man returns, they give back what they had been entrusted with and so much more. But the third man, “out of fear… went off and buried the money in the ground.”
A man interned to the grave that with which he was entrusted. He thought he possessed things to be entombed, and he with them. But he was mistaken. He was given a trust which he did not receive to keep alive. He admits why – he feared living. As if already dead, the fearful man could not share life entrusted to him. He diminished the enduring meaningfulness of life and errantly prioritized the keeping of things. We too can mis-prioritize. We live in a daze of perishable concerns and perishable thoughts. We spend minutes of so many days and stretches of so many years subordinate to things while we neglect the meaningfulness of being alive. We need not struggle with finding meaning. We are meaning itself, naturally so, for we are alive! We can glow with the audacity of being alive. We live as beauty and goodness and we live within all of the beauties and all of the goodnesses that an abundant creation entrusts us with in this life. What is the elation that sparkles from us, the joy that ripples forth? How do we celebrate being alive? MIT Professor Sherry Turkle has, for decades, been studying the subjective side of being gloriously alive in this world burying us under so many passing things, helpful as they can be. She ponders the human meaningfulness we give to objects; laptops, T.V.s, iPads, phones, and more. She especially ponders this for children who may not know life outside the tomb of things. She tells the story of her young daughter, exposed to all manner of technology, being in a museum and watching a turtle sleeping. Her daughter said, “For what this turtle is doing, they could have just had a robot.” Turkle was startled. She researched other children’s responses and heard, repeatedly, that for them, “a robot would have been alive enough.” Professor Turkle realized life, being alive, and meaningfulness was being buried under things, observation, and usefulness. Buried under things, we too are considered in terms of usefulness. We become like the man in the Gospel story, fearful, living in reference to things. We fear being without our things. We fear being alive with ourselves alone, and thus miss our meaningfulness. We fear being alive with others alone, and thus miss our shared meaningfulness. Some, with a fleeting sense they are missing this feeling of being alive, may even taunt the grave to steal snatches of it, as if being alive is but a fleeting dare devil feeling. It is vital we return to the inherent meaningfulness of being alive. It is vital we rise from the tomb of things to be alive in the fresh air, amidst a growing nature, in touch with a living world, intimate with living breathing human beings. We need to nurture our children in being alive. Some of our children may well be the ones nurturing us to be gloriously alive.
“You never intended to be in this world. But you’re in it all the same. so why not get started immediately. I mean, belonging to it. There is so much to admire, to weep over. And to write music or poems about. Bless the feet that take you to and fro. Bless the eyes and the listening ears. Bless the tongue, the marvel of taste. Bless touching. You could live a hundred years, it’s happened. Or not… Do you need a prod? Do you need a little darkness to get you going? Let me be urgent as a knife then.” (Fourth Sign of the Zodiac – Mary Oliver)
Prayer: Spirit, we are entrusted with being alive.
Question: Who am I nurturing in the joy of being alive?
November 15, 2020 Gospel Matthew 25:14-30 Thirty Third Sunday in Ordinary Time