More ‘Sunscreen’ Advice – Building ‘Life’ to Your Years

“Don’t worry about the future, or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum.

“The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindsides you at 4 P.M. on some idle Tuesday.”

~Everybody’s Free to Wear Sunscreen (the Song by Baz Luhrmann).

Many people won’t listen to biblical wisdom and it’s their loss, but God knows that wisdom for living is so important he sprinkles it everywhere. This is one source of God’s wisdom—in this humble song that charted well in the late 1990s.

Being Blindsided

We are best to never underestimate the ability for life to surprise us—and not always for the better. We only need to be blindsided once in a cataclysmic sort of way and we’re forever wary, it seems, to the power of life to grab us by the shortest hairs on our body and shake some sense into us.

Being blindsided and the possibilities for same are not really about living in fear; not at all.

It’s mainly about just simply being aware that these things happen, and indiscriminately it seems. Being awake and compassionate with those who have been side-swiped and T-boned in life is a great thing—a real blessing.

There’s no lack of suffering in this dying world.

Worry – Confounding Folly

The words of Jesus in Matthew 6:25-34 regarding worry and its senselessness are as resonant today as ever, but we can only lead that stubborn horse to water—we can’t make him drink (and stop worrying). Only the horse can do that for themselves!

The logic of worry tends to make sense to us because, well, we can do it.

However, just because we’re capable of doing something doesn’t mean it’ll lead us to the destination we seek. Worriers are generally pretty aimless. They’ve lost focus.

Focus is the great reparative to the ancient vexation of worry and focus is a discipline.

Staying in Eternal Reality – Addressing These Two Above

Reality is the best place. It’s ironically safest. Although it occasionally chills us to its horrible and all-too-real lucidness, it also reveals itself as a friend to the ones of truth. But, we only know this when we dabble in the unconditional experience of it—taking what comes, come what may.

Focus is the friend of reality. It stays in the moment and does not run either to the past or future, for comfort or as the result of some other fear.

As we take our drink from the bar on some holiday destination in the sun, quaffing it reflectively, we do well to remember the moment, cherishing it for what is actually is.

© 2010 S. J. Wickham.