Saturday, July 19, 2008

The Night The Lights Went Out In Mississippi

Okay, that's a take on the song "that's the night when the lights went out in Georgia". I am reading "The Power of Now" and it is profoundly affecting my daily life. If you check out my shelfari you'll see several books on the contemplative life. I have been practicing centering prayer for over a year. After strong urging from a friend, I have started reading the "now" book. It is amazing the correlation between Tolle's book and the spiritual writers such as Merton,Pennington and Keating.It has served as an enhancement to the daily awareness I am working on in my life. It's a bit to "new agey" for me but when I began to pencil in the "cp" lingo for what he was talking about, it came together. All we have is now..I know, all of you probably have already gotten this wisdom point about life, but I'm still working on it.
When I was little we would sing a song at church:"We have this moment to hold in our hands and to touch as it slips through our fingers like sand. Yesterday's gone and tomorrow may never come, but we have this moment today."(words by Gloria Gaither)It's interesting to me that staunch southern baptists, new agers and those seeking a contemplative life have threads of similarity about them.
So, what's this got to do about my blog title? Last night my son was at a friend's house, so it was just me, mom and dad. We were watching "The Bucket List" when the lights went out. What I found(and once again, the readers probably already know this) was that when media crutches are removed, conversation is so much better. We had the best time just talking. I even did the redneck thing, got in the suv and drove around looking for where the transformer blew(it was one street over and a tree had fallen on it). Talk about a movie set. Big lights on poles, enough emergency vehicles for a natural disaster and rubberneckers like me. Honestly, I could have just sat in my car and watched the whole process.Would I have the strength to pull the plug on our media? Interesting that that's what I think it would take to do it. It's something to contemplate.It's what I'm thinking about in the "now". I'll keep you posted.

2 comments:

sage said...

You're right about the conversation being better without media... I like taking "media breaks" and unpluging things--In August I'll have an 8 day one in the Ontario wilderness.

Susie said...

You sound much braver than me, my friend! I guess I don't run with the right "bunch" to do that kind of thing. Planning to canoe in Arkansas this fall, though. Maybe by then I'll have the courage to go "media free" for awhile.I'll be interested to read of your experience.