Clarity

Yesterday an episode of Bones included an observation that went something like this: “It’s a barbarity that clarity is such a rarity.”

Since much of my delight comes from words, I stopped paying attention to anything else in the show and devoted myself to rolling variations of that sentence around and around my mind.

But apart from the clever sounds, the message hits home with me because of the importance of clarity in our spiritual lives. It’s tough to have clarity these days, with so much in the way of images, sounds, and messages coming at us nonstop. We have to find a way to be still long enough to process what’s come in, determine what’s real and meaningful, and absorb what is of value while discarding the rest. Clarity, once we get to it, enables us to know our own opinions, to say what we really mean, to be who we are meant to be. Many of us rely on our spirituality to bring clarity to the rest of our lives.

One avenue to clarity is meditation, the kind where you quiet your mind for long enough periods to come to rest in the cosmos of your soul; another avenue is prayer, the kind where you take your time and say out loud everything – everything – that’s on your heart and then listen to what response there may be. A common avenue is journaling.

Whatever your method, arriving at clarity makes your entire life work better. The rarity of clarity is a barbarity.