Just a little more than a week ago, Maureen and I were
walking along a beautiful beach in Connemara.
The beach was practically deserted.
Only two other people were strolling along a thousand yards away or
so. There were no houses near the beach,
only farmer’s fields and a stunning backdrop of mountains. While we were there a little group of three
cows came by. I’d never seen cows on a
beach before.
Now I’m not recounting this just to make you all jealous
(although that’s good too), but because, while we were walking, it was hard not
to think about how different the scene would be anywhere in our country. Any unprotected beach this beautiful would
have been bought up long ago and would be lined with cottages and houses worth
millions of dollars. Access would be
restricted, parking would be impossible.
Keep in mind, this beach in Connemara was not a state park or a nature
preserve or some other public space, the area all around was just comprised of
several farms. But in Ireland, you can’t
own a beach. You can’t develop the
shoreline. You can’t put up a fence or a
no trespassing sign or restrict the access.
The sea and the shore belong to everyone, and so it’s never
crowded. The wealthiest people don’t get
to buy the most beautiful places and keep the rest of us out. Even the farmers are required to leave all of
their gates unlocked so that walkers can pass through and freely trespass on
their land. Every ocean view is open to
anyone who wants to walk there.
I bring up this difference because it is a great teacher for
our spiritual lives. Like ocean front
real estate, most of us want to possess the things we love the most. For so many people, life is about
acquisition. We spend so much time
buying things and filling our houses with stuff. We want our own plot of ground around our
houses that is ours alone. We want to own. We are generously willing to loan things to
others, but only if it is very clear that something belongs to us and will have
to be returned. We even get possessive
about our families. We want spouses who
belong to us forever. We want kids who
are “ours” and spend all of the most important occasions with us. We are possessive. Many very rich people spend all of their time
trying to get richer, even as their wealth already exceeds what they could ever
spend. And wealth, more than anything
else, buys privacy. It buys a separate
section on an airline flight. It buys a
bigger chunk of land that is off-limits to others. It buys “exclusive” resorts, and “exclusive”
restaurants, and all the trappings of a life lived separately from the rest of
us.
This is a spiritual disease.
It makes all the world a poorer place.
It is a truer joy to feel connected to everyone else by feeling like we
are all in this together. The adventure
of life is about the people you meet and the unlikely encounters that change us
and enrich us, that you can’t have behind the walls of exclusivity or the
fences covered with “no trespassing” signs.
Spiritual maturity is about learning to love, appreciate and enjoy the
gifts of life without having to own or possess or control them. It is about learning to walk through this
world as a pilgrim, without having to dominate it, or tame it, or control it,
but only to experience it and take it in.
Can we love others fully without trying to control them? Can we appreciate beauty without trying to
buy it? Can we live our lives in spaces
that we share with everyone and find the company to be the enrichment that it
is meant to be?
I will never own a piece of that beautiful beach in
Connemara. But it was ours for a couple
of hours one beautiful afternoon and maybe will be again someday for another
few magical hours. That’s enough. I will hope a few dozens of other people will
make it theirs each day in the interim and that sometimes it will just belong
to the cows. For I will trust that God
will continue to fill this life with gifts that I don’t ever have to grab or
hoard or buy, but just enjoy. “Give us
this day our daily bread.”
In Faith,
David
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