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Life Skills: The Jottings of an Apprentice (2002)

 

Introduction

 

Life Skills

      There was a time when communities were governed by recognised wisdom traditions. These traditions suffer from neglect. The current emphasis on knowledge, which supplanted wisdom, is itself under challenge, with many demonstrating a preference for seductive slogans.

      Wisdom traditions, associated with the world's major religions, offered advice on the means to be used to live healthily, fulfillingly and with a commitment to the well-being of others. They asked life questions. They wanted to know whether human existence was meaningful. They pushed the boundaries of human consciousness. Few today are pursuing these questions.

      It is a sad commentary on our age that we are more interested in our electronic gadgetry than we are in these deeper issues. This lack of interest affects individuals and communities. We lack life skills and the wisdom and compassion that would enhance community living and enable us to avoid destroying ourselves.

      This book attempts to reopen the question of life skills--issues of meaning and of wisdom. It makes no claim to being definitive. It merely represents the occasional jottings of a journeyman who has spent sixty years trying to answer the questions life has posed. In seeking to live my questions, I have discovered an insight or two.

      There are books, of varying quality, that attempt to help people negotiate their way through life. This volume does not seek to compete with these offerings, but to complement them.

      I am far from convinced that everyone will find this book helpful. Our diverse personalities and backgrounds, and the fact that each [9] of us is at a different stage in the journey, means that some will benefit from what I have written, while others will find the concepts unfamiliar, even strange. It is my hope that those who can benefit will do so. Where this happens, I will feel the effort has been justified.

      It is my conviction that we are not alone on this silent universe. When I am most in touch with myself, and with the world around me, I am aware of a Presence, a grace that supports my quest.

      Some years ago, reflecting on the fact that there were many suggesting a way forward, I concluded that

There are as many guides as there are paths
and the paths are numerous,
each one promising enlightenment,
salvation
or a new world order.

Even those who argue that reality is intangible,
if not illusory,
the product of our idiosyncratic imagistic
constructions,
work themselves into a frenzy
if you challenge their covert devotion to nihilism
or their strident evangelism.

There are those who generously,
or languorously
contend that all paths lead to God.
Others are too busy avoiding the questions
or have given up
and concluded that none of the paths leads anywhere.

Some contend that each of us must follow our own path,
as those in whom we find inspiration have done, [10]

whose intent was not to develop a following
but to evoke authenticity.

I have come to the conclusion that the path finds us,
and the way embraces us
and that reality is the most substantial of all
insubstantialities,
a mist-like potentiality that continually births us
and our world,
an emptiness that will eventually subsume us
into its eternal creativity.

The secret is the interplay
of awareness and surrender.1

Graeme Chapman [11]      

 

[LS 7-11]

[Table of Contents]
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Life Skills: The Jottings of an Apprentice (2002)