Musing on the Search

I have worked in student ministry for a number of years and I have yet to meet a single child who dreams of working in a cubicle. I have few students who talk with me about their deep desire to live a life filled with mediocrity as they go about a habitual existence in complete normalcy. Yet one might argue that so many grown ups fall into this trap. They wake up once morning to ask the fabled question, “how did I get here?” As the Talking Heads reply, “And you may ask yourself what is that beautiful house? And you may ask yourself, where does that highway go? And you may ask yourself, am I right? ...am I wrong? And you may tell yourself, my god!...what have I done?” Funny that so many wanna-be astronauts grow up to be mid-level accountants. Our desire for security seems to out weight our deep desire to search out our deepest meaning. Needing to make good grades to get into that school, we drop those passions which we were less than exceptional at. So find ourselves trapped, suffocated my mediocrity. We start up baseball teams with our buddies so we can relive our dreams of being a short stop for the Yankees. We sit in theatres watching the exploits of Mark Hamill dreaming of adventuring in a galaxy far, far away. We seek escape. Our perhaps just diversion from the inner longing to search. We lost something important a long time ago, something which each person must find themselves. At least, those are some of my musing.