Got this via Jason Clark who credits imagine! .. anyway, good stuff …
Father Richard Rohr (Franciscan father from the States who spoke at last year’s Greenbelt). This is his “five messages that a teenage boy needs to learn to become a wise man”:
1. Life is hard
2. You are going to die
3. You are not that important
4. You are not in control
5. Your life is not about you
I guess it’s simple and yet profounds truths that battles the illusory lies that often plague our minds …
On No. 1 –> strange but somehow we have this illusion it’s supposed to be easy, but it just gets plain harder.
On No.2 –> i heard somewhere (I think it’s Robert Farrar Capon) the number cause of death is birth (something like that)… sobering.
On No.3 –> then why do we work so hard to be “important” especially in the eyes of other people?
On No. 4 –> Ahh … how I wish things were more predictable! Something always crops up when I feel things are settling down.
On No.5 –> then what is my life about? finding the answer for this is already one more step to wisdom!