#2 Plain and Mundane

So many stories begin with an ache. How many times have you heard some version of the question “is this all there is to life?” And although I think there’s a spiritual component to this, I see the heart of this problem being a matter of passion. Passion is the fire of life, the spark that keeps us going. We don’t typically nurture this flame, so it roars like a bonfire, only to fizzle out over time. We hardly see the slow decay of passion. We compromise here, give in a little over there, then one day we wonder why we feel drained, why even a vacation has gone from the highlight of our year to yet another chore to finish. 

Regardless of how we get there, we all so very often do. I can’t count how many times I have caught myself feeling like I was waiting for life to start. Like I can’t wait to wake up from this dull, gray dream that I regret to call my life. How many movies have I seen, relating to the character at the start who leads a dull, miserable life that never seems to go anywhere? And from what I have seen of others, I’m not the only one that feels this way. Not only have I talked to people that feel this way, but it just plain makes sense: why else would we start so many stories this way, but for how captivating it is to audiences? The fact of the matter is that we all crave some sort of adventure. 

But we don’t just want to be swept away, going off to just anywhere. I mean, sure, you could force a bilbo out the door and into the arms of adventure, but it makes for a different story when he accepts the call, signing the contract gleefully out of his own free will. And even in the case of the character who is forced out, seemingly against their will, it is a love of something that carries them onward when times get tough. There has to be something the character wants that gets them out the door, and keeps them from going back. Every character needs a motive to be part of the story.

So that’s where our stories start: a deep, yearning, an ache for something missing from our everyday lives. Personally, I have found that I can make my life too perfect. I get exactly what I want, and I get it in spades. But that’s where the ache begins: the realization that all my desires aren’t enough. It’s a call to a deeper calling than getting what I want all the time. Sometimes we pin all our happiness to a specific thing. We focus all of our efforts on it. If we finally get it, we find out it wasn’t what we thought it was, and our quest begins. The quest to cure the ache inside. The quest to change not only the world around us, but the world within us. 

I don’t know if you could go through this change while sitting in place, and sometimes parts of your environment do change a little, but the point is to be exposed to new things, new ideas. I believe that the ordinary becomes our rotting jail cell because the real thing we want to change is ourselves. Sure, there are always things out there that could be better. Maybe some of them are big changes, but we have to see ourselves for who we really are, to examine ourselves and some of our ideas, and to have them challenged in some crucial ways. Deep down, we are aching for that. The problem is less that our lives are standing still, but that our growth is standing still. The problem is nothing more than the fact that we become complacent and stagnant. We trade an active mind for a passive one and float through our lives like one big lazy river. 

Deep down, we all crave growth. We all want to be more so that we can see the world differently. I think that’s what we’re all after. Yes, finding romance is a beautiful thing, and having a few more stories to tell would definitely be exciting; but deep down, we long for an even deeper freedom. We long to be free from the parts of ourselves that hold us down, keep us from functioning at our very best. Ultimately, we want to correct those things going on inside of us that keep us from inner peace. And once we have that inner peace, we will find our trail, and it will lead us back to where we should be. 

So ask yourself: what is my rotting piece? What problems need resolving in my life? Pray and ask God to show you. Take some time to examine the ache if you have one. And if you don’t have one, listen to the call to adventure: what do you want to get away from? What do you want to go towards? I would be curious to know what you find, so leave me a comment with your findings. 

I pray you begin to uncover your ache. Not to create problems that don’t exist, but to be able to go out, eventually coming back with a great inner peace that you couldn’t have ever imagined! I pray this begins a great adventure for you. 

And until next time

May peace be your guide