"The question for most Americans today is, Who is going to get me a job next week? Who can keep the economy going next month? That's how farsighted we are, that's how big of a global consciousness we have. We're not connected to the rest of the world; we're not connected to anything except next week. It's hedonistic, it's a-historical, it's spiritually blind, and it keeps all of us from the fourth stage: the wise man, who puts the inner life together with the outer life, the small family together with the big family. Mahatma Gandhi personified this male journey. The sage, or wise man, thinks globally but lives and acts locally."(R. Rohr "Radical Grace" p. 262)
There's a part of me that wants to tell Fr. Rohr, hey, you don't have a wife and kids. You have never had those responsibilities. How dare you point me past what I have to do today?
And yet there is a part of me that says yes, I get it. When the only thing I care about is wife, kids and I, I lose connection to the rest of the world. If while I am in "stage 2" of life, part of my responsibility is to let my kids see and understand that they live and move in a world that is bigger than Wenonah, NJ. To understand and value what it means to take action that might have no direct benefit to you, except that you made a difference to someone else.
It can be very hard to expand our horizons when it feels like the walls are caving in. Except that when we bunker down, we may miss the very hands and people that are interested in helping us too.
Blessings,
Ed
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