The Traps of Life: Stepping Stones to Majesty

             A close friend of mine, a dietician, told me this past week about a client of hers not much older than us (Gen X) whose blood work suggests an early death, five years or so from now, unless he changes a few of his habits.  While he apathetically slumped in his chair, she counseled him to switch from Coke to Diet Coke. 

“Just that would increase his life span by a few years,” she told me.

“Just switching to Diet Coke?!” The change sounded so small.  Later I thought about my resistance to move to decaf from regular coffee to minimize my insomnia.  But at the time, as a non-pop drinker, I was astonished.  “You mean switching to water would add those years, right?”

            “No, I didn’t go there.”  She laughed, shook her head, and looked up.  I could see her imagining his reaction to a suggestion of water.  “Just switching to Diet Coke would do wonders for him, and he won’t do it.”

            I had recently been reflecting on what I call the “traps of life,” and my friend’s story dove-tailed into it so perfectly it was like my whispers of mystery were confirming a message they had just uttered on my favorite trail walk.

While walking through this trail of forested land by a river, I was soaking in the beauty of Planet Earth.  Ours is the most majestic, beautiful, abundant planet of any the astronomers have located.  We humans are given the great fortune of landing on the most glorious planet of the universe.  But it’s also a planet, for us humans, loaded with traps, and each trap carries multiple layers.  Similar to my friend’s client, we can consider the trap of drinks:

To conquer beer, one turns to wine

To conquer wine, one turns to wine coolers

To conquer wine coolers, one turns to pop

To conquer pop, one turns to diet soda

To conquer diet soda, one turns to juice

To conquer juice, one finally turns to water

Our drinks are one trap.  Just one.  Then there’s our food, our shopping, our habits, and for each of these, we have many, and each one carries multiple layers.  Think of those with the trap of beer: how many of them ever make it to water?

To conquer a single trap is triumph.  But once we start conquering any of them, the rest are easier.  And, if you can conquer the traps, life on Earth is glorious and magnificent.  

Reflecting on these traps, a whisper of mystery came through: The Creator made Earth the most majestic, glorious physical place anywhere.  But the majesty can be apprehended only by approaching it through its traps, like reaching the majesty at the top of a mountain through the treacherous act of climbing it.

Today, one could reach the top of a mountain by helicopter.  But the helicopter tourist could never appreciate the majesty like the mountain climber could.  From this we see the majesty of Earth is not denied to those who take shortcuts to see it, but it is only presented in its full glory to those who take the painstaking long road up.

If we see the traps as methods to the majesty, they are no longer futile.  No longer do they appear to us as seemingly random misfortunes of cruel fate, but as the stepping stones to majesty.

© by Karina Jacobson 2024.  All rights reserved.  Please use only with permission and/or a link to this blog