Livin and loven

"Man wants but little here below, and wants that little long." So said Oliver Goldsmith, who reminds us that contentment consists, not in having great resources, but in having few wants.

Complexity is the confining entanglement of this age. We are overwhelmed by information, resources, choices..... which fill our every waking minute. Filled to capacity, we begin to overload. The multiple-choice impact of our consumer life-style confuses us. Our few wants become many needs and thus, complexity leads to frustration. Contentment in simplicity is buried beneath an ever increasing pile of consumer-choice possibilities. In the end, only myopic youthfulness can find a momentary self-fulfilling path.

The trick to survival, or even better, contentment and survival, lies in cutting through the multiple-choice barrier and locking onto core truth. Of course, for many there is no core truth, and so they will have to live with confusion.

C.J. Dennis, in his book The Sentimental Bloke, touched on a core truth with the phrase "livin and loven." Life is not about gaining and possessing, winning and succeeding, but it's about living and loving. Here inded are core elements; the few wants that bring contentment. But Dennis goes on to touch on a deeper truth when he has Doreen prompt her bloke to think on greater things:

"There's 'igher things, she sez, for blokes to do.

An' I am 'arf believin' that it's true."

The "'igher things", if you like, is the gentle touch of Jesus. It's that something beyond the "push", "that leery game." In the end, there is just God, and each individual must find their substance in him. So, the end of the matter is "livin and loven" in Jesus.

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