Cultivate Surprise

Some things in life are simply too exciting to ignore. They come when we least expect them. They explode into the middle of the mundane and race through our veins faster than our hearts can handle the pressure of them. They leave us in a kind of spiritual shock, a sort of spiritual numbness. 

The conversation we doubted we'd ever have is about to happen. The letter we thought would never come arrives. The opportunity we never dreamed would be offered to us is now, unexpectedly, within reach. Life is suddenly different. 

Where, we wonder, do such things come from in the midst of the daily, at the center of unrelenting dullness? 

Life simply keeps intruding on our plans, our decisions, our certainties, our fears. What can we say to ourselves about such things? 

How can our souls absorb such things, how can our minds make sense of them, how can we possibly respond to them? Most of all, what is their spiritual meaning for us? 

Those are not easy questions. They require that we make some decisions about the nature of life itself. As in, is life only random? Does nothing explain the unexplainable? Is there such a thing as destiny? Are we at the mercy of fate? Are we simply pawns in the senseless spinning of an erratic universe? 

To live life without living it with exuberance is one of the saddest burdens a person can choose to carry. It is a wound that is self-inflicted. To live with no life in us is a curse of our own making. 

As surprising and unsettling as the twists and turns of life may be, it is even more damaging to simply take life itself for granted. If we do that, we are fast on our way to becoming inured to the pulse of life that beats through all our days, however taxing, however difficult. If we miss the little things, we will soon begin to take love and friendship and blessing for granted. Perhaps even miss them entirely. When we do not cultivate a sense of surprise, we give in to the emotional dysfunction that suffocates the breath of life in us. Our hearts go sour and our souls go blind. We lack the open-armed exuberance for life that makes the human human. 

It is time to pray for the spiritual consciousness of the unexpected so that Life at work in us can astonish us with its real fullness.