SoulConnect...Returning to Reality

It’s that time of year when many of us are off to enjoy our vacation. We’re planning a little get away just to rejuvenate, and escape the rat race for a little bit. A friend of mine reminded me that sometimes our return from a vacation, or time away, is a jolt to our system. I think they said something like. “I’m returning to reality.” The fact is, when we return home our work is waiting, the lawn needs mowed, laundry needs done, and the routine of life waits for us. The question is. Is that really our reality? Is the routine we find ourselves in, day in and day out our reality? Or, is our routine the escape from a life we have constructed for ourselves so we don’t have to deal with the truth/reality of life?

It’s not an easy question, and I suppose it’s not a question most people think about a whole lot. We mostly think about what needs to get done. We tell ourselves that we’ll find time later to reflect on the depth of what we do with our lives. We’ll wait till later to learn how it all fits together with what we most value in life. So we go on vacation. We get away from the hassles of life and just enjoy being in the moment, able to appreciate the simpler things that we just don’t notice in the daily routine. As the time to return home nears, we begin going over in our minds all that awaits us as we return. Maybe some unfinished business, a desk that is a mess, all the emails that will be waiting, and the bills that came while we were gone. We begin to remember how we’ll have to make up for lost time and catch up for being gone. Our time away begins to fade into our time of return. And we miss again the greatest gift of God’s reality for us. For the time away is our reality in the midst of routine. I believe our time away is a glimpse into what is most important to us. Yet somehow we convince ourselves that it’s just not reality. So we return to the reality that we have constructed as “the world that is.” We are convinced that truly enjoying life happens somewhere else besides where we are.

I’m not suggesting that we ought to escape the rigors and responsibilities of daily life. Nor am I saying that routine is somehow limiting. I’m simply suggesting that life is to be enjoyed; all of it, each day. I’m suggesting that our lives should be a time of returning. Returning to seeing the goodness in God’s creation, returning to love and build up, returning to persevere in places we would rather not; returning to live as if what we value, and what we say actually matters. Where have you been? When will you return? Reality has always been with you. Thank God.