dailydatewithgod

Have you ever stopped to think about what kinds of entertainment you like?  Do you prefer visuals or sounds?  Do you like lots of color or stark contrasts?  When you notice what your mind spends time thinking about you begin to clue into what your brain considers to be entertainment. It seems like our world is all about entertaining. Yet the goal seems to be to keep us occupied and numbed out. So much so that when we are not being entertained we feel as though we are having less than an optimal experience.  We want our spouses to entertain us.  We want our phones to entertain us.  We want our teachers to entertain us.  We seek out entertaining rewards.  Novelty and excitement creates new connections in our brains.  This is a good thing.  However, in order for us to be with the breadth and depth of the entertaining experience we need time to digest it.  Today we are entertained at every corner. After a while it becomes distraction.  It dulls our sensitivity and we create an expectation that in order for something to be important at all, it must be entertaining.  We are left feeling as though the ordinary and the routine are sub-par experiences because we are not overly stimulated by them.  The greatest joke about life that I clued in on after many years of my daily dates with God is that when we make time in the ordinary silence and quiet contemplation where we are not looking to be entertained and strongly engaged, all of life can be entertaining.  I find great joy and a sense of excitement sometimes in watching how birds travel in flocks.  I am tickled pink by watching a child share an idea they just learned. All of life becomes entertaining on some level because the wonder is returned.  When I make space for the opposite of what the world throws at me as entertaining and attune myself to the sacredness of the simple pleasure of being able to be alive and breathe, I can be entertained by the ordinary.