WANT and LACK
We spend a lot of time concentrating on both those things we want and those things we lack for the two are not necessarily interchangeable in all cases. Often our wants don’t reflect our lacks and our lacks may even have little to do with our wants. With the delicate position we find our selves in from day to day life knowing not the future we often make base choices that aren’t in our own best interest. I say this to make a point yet not at the expense of throwing out the baby with the bathwater, as want is a legitimate and meaningful feeling. I recently heard a Japanese proverb on the matter that touched me.
“For want of a nail, the horse shoe was lost.
For want of a horse shoe the stead was lost.
For want of a stead the message was lost.
For want of the message the war was lost.”
Its amazing how simply the proverb depicts the demise of a nation at war spawning from the downward spiral of want and indeed need of something so relatively small, simple, and attainable. This proverb speaks with a broad yet specific voice if you will. In indulging me in this little oxymoron one will find that the proverb speaks quite specifically about want and loss but in a broad sense speaks about causality and the necessity for attention to detail. In hearing the words and taking them at face value one could say that the lost message lost the war, but I think the more specific message was that the lost nail was in fact what lost the war. Sometimes the simplest details are the ones that can lead to our downfall, and unfortunately sometimes these simple things we lack are not the things we want. In such they often go overlooked and neglected until the snowball in to a larger lack, loss, or problem.
We should own our wants and acknowledge them for what they truly are. More often then not we will find that they are not in true alignment with our lacks and in such are not truly things that we need. We should pay special attention to what we do have and in being the good steward we were all called to be we should take special care never to neglect it. The neglect of the horse in our little story seemed simple and insignificant at the onset but eventually changed the fate of a nation. Finally we should strive to align the two, being our wants and our lacks, when we pay attention to those thing we lack and need and give them priority over those things we simply want, all he wile being thankful for those things we already have, we place ourselves on the road to completion. We put ourselves one step closer to a fulfilled goal, not just the attainment of a want, but the attainment of a need that will sustain us to and through the attainment of our later wants. Thank you all, and God’s Peace!
Auxilio ab alto By help from on high Br. Maurice D. Ravennah
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