The Fish in the Bowl
Who can take from a man what he’s gained or what he’s done, where he’s been, what he’s learned, or what God has made him.
The world seems to think that it has the answers for another man’s success. They may even tag him a failure because he won’t buy their ideas, especially when all around him so much misery seems to be starring him down.
In a fishbowl, separated by their distorted views, he sits in silence, watching as the world rushes buy, too damn busy to take a moment to wonder what their hurry is… or perhaps too afraid to stop because they know the reason why.
Blinded by desires that sooth not the inward parts, their frantic race is a search for more of what they’ll never find. They seem to toil endlessly for luxuries and comforts so as to appear to others that they have what it takes to be a success, but they miss this golden opportunity, this time called life.
This trampled path is well worn and wide as an ocean, littered with decaying carcasses, old bones, and ash. While it appears to lead somewhere, it goes no where forever. There are many who go this wide way. There are many who have been. And yet, the man they sit in judgment of is one who by his faith in God and the sweat of his brow, has attained his bowl of happiness.
Content, this man sits behind the glass, humble in his watery womb. But the world that sees him by a distorted view are envious amid their torturous ruin, and even this, they try to snatch away from him.
As they sit atop their heap of ravaged souls, clutching in their hand some gleaming prize of more, they are giddy with their sickly laughter. They scan the landscape all around, of wasted efforts and unrealized hope in a desperate search for more of what they’ll never know.
What is that on the far horizon; that glimmer of light; that smile; that faith; that ray of hope? Never satisfied and too foolish to understand, jealousy overrules their soul as they scheme inside themselves for how to remove the fish from the bowl.
So as you enter your own field of dreams, be careful, because in that same field are many disappointments too. Wishes and desires can seem to rush by like strangers in a crowd. They can quite easily whisk you off your feet as you attempt to reach out and grasp something that can all too easily slip right through your fingers if you squeeze too tightly.
These same wishes and desires can also bob around like soap bubbles, causing your head to twist around in a direction that your body fails to follow, separating you from yourself in vain attempts to capture what is not yours to own.
Be careful in that place of dreams. Fix your eyes on One, stretch out your hand, and let it float down slowly into the palm of it, curl your fingers gently round it, careful not to crush. Now hold it to your heart, never letting go. For in this field of dreams with many lofty words, there are also many disappointments mingled with much vanity.
___________________________________________________________________________
The world seems to think that it has the answers for another man’s success. They may even tag him a failure because he won’t buy their ideas, especially when all around him so much misery seems to be starring him down.
In a fishbowl, separated by their distorted views, he sits in silence, watching as the world rushes buy, too damn busy to take a moment to wonder what their hurry is… or perhaps too afraid to stop because they know the reason why.
Blinded by desires that sooth not the inward parts, their frantic race is a search for more of what they’ll never find. They seem to toil endlessly for luxuries and comforts so as to appear to others that they have what it takes to be a success, but they miss this golden opportunity, this time called life.
This trampled path is well worn and wide as an ocean, littered with decaying carcasses, old bones, and ash. While it appears to lead somewhere, it goes no where forever. There are many who go this wide way. There are many who have been. And yet, the man they sit in judgment of is one who by his faith in God and the sweat of his brow, has attained his bowl of happiness.
Content, this man sits behind the glass, humble in his watery womb. But the world that sees him by a distorted view are envious amid their torturous ruin, and even this, they try to snatch away from him.
As they sit atop their heap of ravaged souls, clutching in their hand some gleaming prize of more, they are giddy with their sickly laughter. They scan the landscape all around, of wasted efforts and unrealized hope in a desperate search for more of what they’ll never know.
What is that on the far horizon; that glimmer of light; that smile; that faith; that ray of hope? Never satisfied and too foolish to understand, jealousy overrules their soul as they scheme inside themselves for how to remove the fish from the bowl.
So as you enter your own field of dreams, be careful, because in that same field are many disappointments too. Wishes and desires can seem to rush by like strangers in a crowd. They can quite easily whisk you off your feet as you attempt to reach out and grasp something that can all too easily slip right through your fingers if you squeeze too tightly.
These same wishes and desires can also bob around like soap bubbles, causing your head to twist around in a direction that your body fails to follow, separating you from yourself in vain attempts to capture what is not yours to own.
Be careful in that place of dreams. Fix your eyes on One, stretch out your hand, and let it float down slowly into the palm of it, curl your fingers gently round it, careful not to crush. Now hold it to your heart, never letting go. For in this field of dreams with many lofty words, there are also many disappointments mingled with much vanity.
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posted by hugh lipsius at 12:02 PM
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