We are living in an outer world that pretends to be the inner world. The elements of human life that are primarily rooted in interiority, service to the higher—that is, the realm of relationships, of love, knowledge, creativity, elements that are reflected in family, community, the refinement and perfection of nature (science and art)—all these elements are now embedded in money. Money seems the most real factor of life because our glimpses of the inner world are immediately swallowed by modes of acting and thinking and feeling that are geared to dealing with money….If we do not love God, we will inevitably love that which conveys intense energies in our daily lives, including, especially, money. Jacob Needleman
Within us is a yearning to experience being – life in its fullest capacity. This divine desire propels us on a quest to find – to seize those experiences that bring us closer to true being.
And yet, too often in our haste to experience the fullness of life, we conflate the spiritual well that activates and actualizes being with tactile, temporal offerings. The call of rich, meaningful, inner experiences of being available to us drowns in the cacophony of materialistic voices without. And the more we lose touch with ourselves, the deeper we wade into the waters of materialism until eventually the riptides of greed and lust pull us ever further away from the shore of our own soul.
Our materialistic pursuits, though they vary in tone and texture, all converge at this apex: money. Money becomes the well from which we draw in order to satisfy our materialistic goals. And without even realizing it, we have now strayed so far from the shore that we cannot even see it, choking on saltwater in a futile effort to slake our thirst. We have conflated our desire for being with the lust for material things, and we have further decided that to have what we want, we must have money to get it.
In most cases, we don’t question this mode of living at all. At best, we comfort ourselves by donating a small percentage of our money to what we deem our worthy causes. At worst – we are at our worst – slaves to the master of money as we plod forward in our erroneous belief that money buys things and attracts people that will fulfill our innermost longings.
But you can’t smell the roses when you’re lost at sea.
The only way we escape the clutches of money is to return to the shores of our soul and begin the trek inland, exploring the true, rich, fulfilling, divine experiences of being that await until they enrapture us and we forget all else – including and especially money.
Source Scripture
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Twitter: @AwestruckPod
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Extras
Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would have not been at all. You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace. St. Augustine
Created things pull us outside ourselves. We fix our attention on objects, and so our mode of consciousness becomes objective. We assume that the pursuit of the external will, in return, bring us reward as the objects of our attention come to us.
And yet, no matter how hard we try, the external cannot cross the threshold into our inner being and satisfy our real need. Possessions can go no further than an ephemeral caress of the ego. And this maddening tease drives us to toss aside one failed object for the next, leading us on an endless and fruitless pursuit.
Saint Augustine awakened from objective consciousness, from his madding pursuit of created things, to discover that looking outside himself for meaning only drew him away from himself. And the way back to himself was to yield to the divine call that comes only from within.
Today, we turn our attention away from created things out there– letting go of objective consciousness – and look toward the treasure that lie within, where the Creator of all things calls to us.
Source Scripture
Matthew 6:19-21; Luke 12:33-34
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Twitter: @AwestruckPod
Email: info@awestruckpodcast.com
Extras
The Awestruck Podcast musical playlist
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Paradise Now – Tim Mackie of The Bible Project