Guest Writer: Dn. Jessica Krzewina
There are times in life when I take strolls down memory lane. Something will happen and I am transported back to a different time and place. This seems to happen every fall, as the weather gets colder and the days get shorter.
When I was younger I used to play at a nearby park. My sister and I would bike to the park to enjoy some time on the playground, most especially in the summer months. In the middle of this particular playground sat three small merry-go-rounds.
Often while my sister and I were there we would play on these merry-go-rounds. Not in the general “let’s get on and spin for a while.” Instead, there were two different ways we would play on these merry-go-rounds.
DISCLAIMER: My sister and I never seriously got injured. Maybe a bruise or two, but nothing more than that. We were resilient in the way that all kids are resilient. Kids bounce. I swear.
Scenario A: One of us would stand off the merry-go-round and spin it as fast as we could. It was then our job to try to jump ONTO the spinning merry-go-round. Sometimes I would make it, other times I was too afraid to make the jump. I would wait until it slowed down, and then make the jump, or I would just choose not to jump (I was what one would call a “chicken”).
Scenario B: One of us would sit in the center of the merry-go-round and the other would spin it as fast as they could. Our job was to stay in the center of the merry-go-round and just HANG ON. Often times we would succeed, however you got real dizzy real fast!
I have since watched other children play these exact games, so I know I am not along in the crazy antics of children.
Anyway…
I feel we often view life as a merry-go-round. And instead of enjoying life, we feel we have one of two jobs. We either need to try to jump into the middle of our spinning world or we need to try to hang on for dear life in the middle of the spinning chaos.
Maybe it is time we step back from the merry-go-round. When we continue to play on the merry-go-round we miss the holy moments that surround us on a daily basis. We are too afraid of either falling off or jumping on that we miss the beauty and holiness around us.
When we are too busy trying to hang on, we miss everything that is happening around us. When you watch a child on the merry-go-round, odds are their eyes are closed. he world is spinning too fast for their eyes to stay open. When we are clinging on to our spinning life, our eyes are closed, too.
And on the other side of the game, when we are too busy trying to jump into the middle of the spinning mess, we are too focused on the task at hand. We can’t see what is going on around us when we are trying to get up the courage to jump into a spinning mess.
The bottom line is, at least as far as I have found, is that when we play on the merry-go-rounds of life, we miss the holy moments. We miss the stillness, we miss the quiet voice of our Savior whispering into the recesses of our hearts.
So let’s step back and slow down. Maybe we should go play on the swings instead. There’s a better a view, a slower pace, and we can see the holy moments unfold around us. Join me?
Blessings abound,
Dn. Jess
