Reflections 9/21/10

"Our suffering is psychological, relational and addictive: the suffering of people who are comfortable on the outside but oppressed and empty within. It is a crisis of meaninglessness and the false self, which had tried to find meaning in possessions, prestige and power. It doesn't work. so we turn to ingesting and buying to fill our empty souls."(R.Rohr "Radical Grace" p. 315)

There have been several op-Ed pieces in the New York Times lately about the anger of the rich and the anger of the middle class here in America. Everybody so angry over money. Money that they don't have and or money they want to keep.

I have a colleague who shared a link where you can type in your income and see what percentage of wealthy you are in the whole world, not just the USA. Apparently I'm the 54,864,272 wealthiest person in the whole world. Puts me in the top 1%. Of course in my context, US citizen I don't feel all that wealthy.

There's a part of me that understands what that survey was trying to tell me, that compared to most of the world's population I'm pretty well off. Actually when I look at satisfaction with life, I consider myself to be quite wealthy. I don't have a lot of extra income, and I don't have a lot of stuff.

But I do understand that crisis of meaninglessness, because it does rear its ugly head from time to time for me. I know when I'm feeling that way because I feed my addiction. I'll eat when I'm not hungry, just to satiate the boredom or the stress. It is not healthy. And I know its reality because when I'm motivated and enjoying myself I eat at meals and in reasonable quantities.

I'd like to believe that my soul is not empty, but it certainly isn't filled to the rim yet. I know the way to get to meaningfulness and when I'm on that path the destructive stuff loses its grip.

Blessings,
Ed