Beyond Activities and Possessions

I am now starting my third year of “retirement” and am still amazed how busy I am. For a while, I thought that this was just a temporary phase while I was catching up with all the things I had neglected during my executive career. Then there was the matter of moving up the coast to a wonderful small community and creating a pleasant life. I have succeeded in writing some blogs and in staying in touch with a wide variety of friends. But why do I still get up at 5:00 AM to make sure that I can accomplish what seems important?

Obviously the building of a new house on two lovely acres and all the landscaping and gardening opportunities fill a lot of hours. I have investments to manage and a few boards that require my best judgment. We just sold an old van and bought a new one. I have another car to sell off.

It seems that I can hardly keep up some days on doing what seems truly important. Does this sound like a familiar story?

Eugene Peterson said once that modern people spend much of their lives pursuing ever more possessions and ever more activities, but neither can truly satisfy our deepest longings, which are for Intimacy and for Transcendence.

Intimacy means an affectionate and loving personal relationship with another person or with a group of friends. It involves closeness, familiarity and warmth. It requires a lot of time and commitment. It means opening up ourselves on a deep level and becoming vulnerable. It requires shedding our veneers and facing our companions with our defects and insecurities on display. It means dropping our masks of respectability to stand naked emotionally with those we love. Intimacy is a lot more difficult than sharing activities and comparing possessions. Why do we need it so much?

Transcendence is an obscure word for many people. It doesn’t even appear in some dictionaries, although transcend, transcendent and even transcendental are used from time to time.

To transcend is to go beyond, rise above or be more important or better than something, especially a limit. Transcendent is greater, better, more important, or going beyond or above all others. Transcendental describes an experience, event, object or idea that is extremely special and unusual and cannot be understood in ordinary ways

Transcendence words are used particularly in philosophy, psychology and religion. This concept involves going beyond our normal range of perception. Sometimes it can mean being above and independent of the material universe. It may be expressed as supreme, extreme, ultimate, unsurpassable, or uttermost. It may be an experience, event, object or idea that is extremely special and unusual and cannot be understood in ordinary ways. All of these words are used frequently to refer to God or any other concept of Deity. They may involve prayer, meditation and the invisible realms of reality, such as Heaven.

So coming back to your and my ordinary lives, how can we pursue intimacy and transcendence, rather than just increasing our activities and possessions?

I may not choose to be intimately related to everyone I meet, particularly if I suspect that they are manipulative or malicious. However, I have daily opportunities to open up to new people and to spend meaningful moments with my closest companions. That should be at least as important as building my house or finishing my never-ending TO DO list.

Transcendence takes even more focus and concentration. It means looking up at the night sky with millions of bright stars when our dogs need to run out. It means watching plants and trees in their life cycle through the seasons and wondering about the cycles of my life and those of other people.

Both transcendence and intimacy deserve far more of my attention and reflection. They are what I long for most deeply when my busy-ness subsides at midnight.