A Catholic Times' columnist reflects on the word 'discovery' and tells us that it should be a part of our lives. Although the word is often associated with geniuses and great minds, that need not be the case, he says. It depends on what we understand the word to mean. There is one condition that helps to nurture discovery, and that is an interest in life. He associates interest in anything with a love for life.
Life lived with intensity and sincerity enables us to discover many things. It is like parents with a new-born baby, who if writing a diary would have a new discovery to add each day. He expresses a few of his discoveries in a short passage:
Time is the vessel for space, and eternity is the vessel for time.
Each day of 365 is a season.
All the stones I gaze at are jewels.
The stronger the manure I use the redder will be the flesh of my watermelon.
Understanding comes in a flash.
Jesus was a poet of poets.
If you have a terminal illness go in search of the Doctor of the flowers.
These no doubt are insipid, he tells us. But they are not what you usually hear so he calls them discoveries. Actually the columnist tells us they are lines that have been taken from his poetry. This is a very natural result since poetry has to do with invention and discovery.They all help to form the masterpieces of life, and, he says, it is our destiny to work on fashioning masterpieces. Everything we do comes together to form our concrete, or nonspecific masterpieces.
If this is the case, for the same kind of effort is it not wise, he asks, to have a beautiful masterpiece to leave behind. It is the Creator of existence who will be the one to enjoy our masterpiece. The columnist does not feel we sufficiently see the importance of our life, and makes this one of his central topics when the occasion presents itself.
The palette for this masterpiece is life itself. The gift of life is God's gift to us and what we do with life is our gift to God. If we could be more conscious of this, our columnist says, life would be much more interesting and precious.
