You look only with your eyes, so you are easily fooled...

I just came in from seeing the movie "Karate Kid", and the title for my entry tonight is taken from an exchange in the movie that meant something to me...it made me ask myself the question, what am I looking for? I wonder how often I see what I see, because I'm looking for it, rather than because it's really there. Obviously, for me, I'm referring to a very specific situation that I find myself working through at this time in my life, but I think the principle applies to all of us at some time or another. We look for the things that we want, all of us...and unless we see from a place deeper than our physical eyes, we risk seeing what we wish to see, rather than what is. In the movie, the young student is being taught to be still, and to anticipate, and to truly see what is. The conversation about being still was particularly powerful to me, because it reminded me of contemplative prayer. The teacher says to the student, "there is a big difference between being still and doing nothing..."


Do you struggle with the idea that being still is doing nothing? I do. As the teacher taught the boy about focus, he told him that he had to be still in his head, and in his heart...completely still, like the glassy surface of completely calm water. I realized how far I am from that kind of stillness, and was glad for the tool of contemplative prayer to help me move toward a calmer and stiller place. When the disciples were traveling across the Sea of Galilee and a storm came up in the middle of the night, they feared for their lives, and woke Jesus...who was asleep in the boat. Jesus, in response to their fear and the raging storm, said, "Peace, be still"...and the waters around them became immediately calm. The gospel story ends with an account of how the disciples were both frightened and amazed, because even the wind and the seas obeyed Jesus. The reaction of the disciples is anti-climactic to me though, because the only part of the story that I can really hear is Peace, be still.