Keep in touch with that inner stirring

Don Murray The transition day has passed. The lake is quiet. The summer people have retreated to their usual homes. The delightful squeals and laughter of the children playing in the water is no more. The last sailboat race took place on the lovely windy Sunday of Labour Day weekend. Students and teachers are back in their classrooms. And we have all settled into our usual routine and challenges of another year.

According to Wikipedia, “The origins of Labour Day in Canada can be traced back to December 1872 when a parade was staged in support of the Toronto Typographical Union’s strike for a 58-hour work-week.” Get that. A 58-hour week. We have come a long way; except that now it is management that often works the 58 or more hour week. Following Canada’s start, a parade was organized in New York for Sept. 5, 1882. Canada, copying the U.S., passed a law in 1884 making the first Monday in September a national holiday in honour of Labour. (Wikipedia makes interesting reading.)

We have all usurped Labour Day as the unofficial end of summer and the return to the usual rigours of our everyday lives. On the other side of the coin, those serving the tourist trade and other activities of summer can breathe a little easier as the rush of another year – an especially good one – cools down.

Weather-wise the summer has been great. In other ways our summer has gone from joy to grief. Early in the summer all my family, from Winnipeg to Vienna, were here. Rare to have them all at the same time. Then our summer was plunged into grief with the death of Jonathan. With the loss of a son we are left with a great void, and pondering the deeper mysteries of life.

In our busy world when do we have, or take, the time to commune with the fundamental questions of life and the wondrous Mystery of it all. Who are we? Where have we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going? Is there any purpose to it all? What is my place and role in the scheme of things?

“if church and religion works for you, carry on. However, my concern is for those who hang on for social reasons, or have voted with their feet and left, or have never been part of any religion.”

For many, our traditional religions give answers, or a space to ponder the questions. The traditional Sunday worship of the Christians gave a time and place to touch the Holy and be reminded that we belong to something grand and magnificent. However, for more and more people, that opportunity has faded. The old story no longer speaks to our souls. It is easy to drift away and be consumed with our many involvements. Our lives easily become eaten up with the demands of the day. The larger issues get pushed into the background and can disappear altogether.

The result can be that we lose touch with our souls. Who we are deep inside gets lost in the shuffle. Life can be very good, but sooner or later we feel some deep unrest; a yearning for something but we may not know what. This is happening more and more throughout society. There is a spiritual unrest, a need to commune with a deeper purpose than money and pleasure. Family and work and community are all part of life but we would like to feel we belong to something greater and grander, that all we are and do belongs to some grand whole that has evolved us and wants the best from us.

If church and religion works for you, carry on. However, my concern is for those who hang on for social reasons, or have voted with their feet and left, or have never been part of any religion. If the church, or whatever your religion, has slipped out of your life, I’m not suggesting a return. When the story has died it cannot be resuscitated. Efforts are made but they are never more than partially successful.

The other possibility is transforming the story. Every age leads into the next, but the new age takes on a different way of thinking and being. Hopefully a significant part of the church can evolve into some form of the Universal Story that binds us as one.

Whatever your situation, keep in touch with that stirring within that pushes you to honour your inner life and be who you really are in the world.

It is the real you that the world needs. A Word to the Spiritual Seeker