OUR RIGHTFUL MIND

We are seduced into thinking that the right to choose from a menu is the essence of liberty, but the powerful are those who set the agenda, not those who choose from the alternatives it offers. (Benjamin R. Barber, Consumed, 2007)

Little Protestant shopkeepers and players of golf take the meaning out of everything.

(Lewis Thompson, 1909-1949, Journals)

I think both of the authors quoted above would agree that if humanity has any hope of surviving we are going to have to come to see things in a whole different way. I’m talking about changing our perception of reality. We tend to discourage that sort of that sort of thing; it’s bad for business. Right now most of us perceive ourselves as needing a lot more stuff than we actually require. Our perception is that we need this, that or the other thing, and we cannot possibly be happy, fulfilled, whole, complete, cool, hip, or whatever without it, and in a consumer society we do not want those perceptions messed with. If the commercials during championship football games teach us anything it is that it takes time, talent, and lots of money to encourage our perceptions and we don’t want anyone waking up and questioning the insanity of our lives – not the quiet desperation, nor the fragmentation, nor even the way in which we spend so much time dwelling on the past or fretting about the future that we sleep-walk through our day relying on familiar patterns and routines to such an extent that even our most intimate moments run the risk of becoming formulaic. As near as I can determine consumerism is its own zombie apocalypse.

Sooner or later we’re going to have to criminalize prayer. It can lead us to recognize our true likeness, and the Market won’t stand for that. Prayer introduces us to our rightful mind; it enables us to see among other things that happiness belongs to our essential and eternal nature and is what we bring to people, places, and things, not what is produced by them. This knowledge changes us. What would life be like if we loved God with our whole heart? What if we really loved our neighbor? What would become of grasping and fear if we truly knew that nothing in this world has the power to rob us of our happiness?