The Rhythm of Life

In her book, "The Celtic Way of Prayer,"  Esther de Waal writes, "Today when I go into a supermarket and buy any of the fruits of the earth at any time of the year I need no longer be aware of the pattern of the earth bringing forth her fruits in due season.  Living with electricity, I can deny the night and extend my day entirely to suit my own self, my needs, and my interests.  I can forget the coming of the dark or the slow dawning of the lights; the pattern of the rising and setting of the sun, or the waxing and waning of the moon, are no longer really important."    

The author is not on a soapbox telling all of us to make our home in some wilderness place, or somewhere away from the crowded urban areas where so many live, but is instead speaking to a problem fundamental to our living and living well.  What she points toward is the way our life is out of rhythm.  We are creations of the Creator who also created the Creation.  The first chapter of Genesis underscores this basic reality about life.  We were in the beginning connected to the Creation in such a way as to be aware of its presence and power all around us.    

Things have changed.  We journey from one place to another, from one thing to another, and from one moment to the next in such a hurry and with minds so busy that we are often not even conscious of  the fact that we walk, breathe, and live within the creation God has put around us.  We pay no, or little attention, to what is being said to us through it about the way we must live if we are to live with the created rhythm.  When we get out of rhythm, we work too much, we take ourselves too seriously, and we start ignoring the things within us and outside of us which sustain our lives and the lives of those we love.  Messed up lives may be another way of talking about living out of rhythm with the God created Creation and its order.