Expanding here on a metaphor I’ve been using lately. It came as a visual image: a brightly lit sports field, with clearly delineated markings and goal areas. The area beyond the playing field is black, only blackness, above, below, to the side, all around the field is blackness. But there’s a sense of space, it’s clear that the blackness has depth, it is a place, it is much larger than that clearly lit playing field.
I used to see life as a game defined by rules and patterns that could be figured out with logic and rational critical thinking. All the successes, the good stories, the bad stories, it seemed like almost everything could be explained with logic and facts. By applying logic and reason, any situation could be analyzed and the proper response or action determined. I could still play around and have fun, but that would happen outside of situations requiring careful decision-making.
The image of the playing field described above helps put this limited logical view of life into a broader perspective that can include all the non-logical aspects of our lives, our relationships, our spiritual journeys:
First see this logical, rational view of life as a soccer field. The field has a grid measuring position, defined goals, areas that are off limits. The game has a large set of defined rules for what moves are allowed and what is not allowed. In this view we need to act according to the rules and our position, to advance our position and score points in the game. If we’re on the field we better play by the rules, and do our best to score.
In contrast, much of our actual life experience takes place off of the playing field. It is not governed by logic or rationality, perhaps not governed by any rules that we’re consciously aware of. It happens in seeming blackness, where we may feel blind to our direction, surprised by what we come across.
We find parts of our life that seem to make no sense. Why does it have to be like that? Why didn’t my actions have the effect I thought they would?
There is a pattern at work here. There are rules. But you don’t see it with the same eyes you use on the playing field. You don’t figure it out with the same logical mind you use there.
You have the eyes to see, you have the consciousness capable of perceiving what is contained in the infinite blackness surrounding the playing field.
Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world
Eyes of the World, Robert Hunter / Grateful Dead
The heart has its beaches, its homeland and thoughts of its own
Wake now, discover that you are the song that the morning brings
But the heart has its seasons, its evenings and songs of its own