I found myself in a church classroom today. How and why I got there is unimportant to this story. The important thing is that I was sitting there in a little kid’s plastic chair, and I looked over at the various propaganda posted on the wall for the children to read, stumbling on the following: Continue reading
Once upon a time…
This is how the stories begin, and from the first four words we know the ending we expect. No matter how old we grow, we continue to be affected by the tales of our childhood. These stories fill us with dreams and expectations which, even as we take our knocks and draw on the mantle of cynicism, we cannot quite expunge. Somewhere in the deepest dregs of our consciousness, we all still dream of the happy ending.
Our lives are given over to the end result. We are a culture obsessed with the product, the end point, the elusive “conclusion” with little to no emphasis put on the process which got us there. The schooling we endure is for the purpose of a good job when we are older. The job we do is for the purpose of a paycheck, or a chance to climb that next rung on the corporate ladder. The paycheck is for the purpose of buying things, and the things are for the purpose of filling up that empty hole in our hearts where our life’s purpose ought to be.