Treasuring our Trash
Martha Beck

I have discovered that many of the things I thought were priceless are as cheap as costume jewelry, and much of what I labeled worthless was, all the time, filled with the kind of beauty that directly nourishes my soul...Now I think that the vast majority of us "normal" people spend our lives trashing our treasures and treasuring our trash. We bustle around trying to create the impression that we are hip, imperturbable, omniscient, in perfect control, when in fact we are awkward and scared and bewildered.
["Expecting Adam" by Martha Beck - in Today's Daily Dig, 08/13/2003]
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I'm finding that we not only "trash our treasures" and buy into the deception that "our trash is our treasure" - but we also can't be talked out of that very easily. We're so solid most of the time in what we already know, already trust, already "have all figured out," that we couldn't change our minds if we wanted to. We conform to each other, and then can't stand to have our minds renewed or our lives really transformed... And we nod our heads in agreement with a paragraph like Ms. Beck's, but then nothing changes. We affirm that we've taken in the information, and we feel more mature for the transaction - but in the end, pigs go back to the mud and those pearls of wisdom are fodder for the sty.

but that's just me...
- posted by Rick @ 08:48