On Devotion

I am reflecting on the word 'devoted'-- it is such a beautiful word but it is never used anymore..! Do you notice that ? No one is devoted to anything anymore in secular society, not faith, not family... there is only 'devotion' where there is immediate, tangible gratification...


In the same way that our culture no longer finds it sane to construct a place of worship over the span of 100 years, so it is the same mindset with devotion in general.
We have somehow become a devotion-less society, we are led to believe that there is no time to practice devotion to a single cause. This phenomenon not only applies to fervency in practicing a religion but also in conscientiousness within the family unit; that is, the willingness to ‘stick it out’ and see one’s family through the thick and the thin. The fear is that in investing too much time into building something intangible we are expending time and energies that could be used in other areas of our lives that will produce money or instant gratification of some kind.

But we do not want to be this way!

If you speak to a new friend, most get to know you conversations will include a fond recall of stories about their families and/or passions that they have yet to pursue. All of these things are known to take time and sometimes more effort than anyone feels capable of expending. It’s as if we have all admitted our defeat as we are held captive in routines that we only initially submitted to following, only now to find ourselves irreversible prisoners. We are all in a permanent state of wistfulness, each carrying more baggage than ever before in history. Never before have children lived with several other children sharing a mother and each child boasting of a different father. Never before have children been sedentary in front of a machine for hours on end while their parents work overtime to afford their next Nintendo accessory. I know that I am speaking in generalities, here. I know that not everyone out there is working for the frills. I am the first to agree that poverty is very real. In most cases, however, the self-proclaimed ‘poor’ are just trapped in a painful reality that they have created themselves. Maybe at first their desire was to provide better lives for their children, but how does one define a ‘better life’? Which is ‘better’ a life of camping trips and family suppers or a life of iPods and TV dinners alone while mom and dad are at work..?

Somewhere along the way we in the first world have managed to create the worst possible breed of captivity: the kind of captivity that we build for ourselves. This breed initially appears ideal but quickly reveals itself to be a prison.

This would be a sad story if it ended here, but it does not….there is freedom and it begins now with a single decision. A mere consent to be set free…