THE QUESTION OF PARADISE

“This morning, with her, having coffee.”

Johnny Cash

When we think of paradise it is often a place. Perhaps a white sand beach that doesn’t burn your feet, with crystal clear water that feels like a refreshing bath. The conjuring of blissful place, that is as calming and invigorating to our insides as it is to our physical being.

The cliche, ” we want what we don’t have” creates a longing in us to chase that unknown. This is beyond ambition. Is it greed? Gluttony? Once achieved, what is next? Bigger? Better? Riskier? How to find extraordinary in our ordinary. The rare moments in our lives we chase to stay so vivid in our minds. Sure these adventures can be life-affirming but what happens when life returns back to the day to day?

The Passion of the Ordinary.

Is there a moment in a day that we find paradise in the mundane? Do we appreciate the consistency and routine or do we view it with a resentful eye. The challenge to discover something new in what too familiar. What is the feeling of paradise anyway? The desire to feel contentment regardless of where you are, who you are with, what you are doing. A capture of time, no matter how short that our minds can find rest and release with.

Contentment begins when we realize paradise lost is actually a paradise found.