One thing leads to another, and so often we discover later that they’re all linked. Perhaps that’s what will be writ large in the heavens when our sojourn upon this earth gives way to new depths and adventures –
“They’re all [we’re all] linked.”
Anyway, today led me to Carl Jung’s writing about an experience in Uganda in 1925:
” … After a while an elderly Englishman, obviously a squatter, joined me, sat down, and likewise took out a pipe. He asked where we were going. When I outlined our various destinations, he asked, “Is this the first time you have been in Africa? I have been here for forty years.” “Yes,” I told him. “At least in this part of Africa.” “Then may I give you a piece of advice? You know, mister, this here country is not man’s country, it’s God’s country. So if anything should happen, just sit down and don’t worry.” Whereupon he rose and without another word was lost in the hordes surrounding us. His words struck me as somehow significant, and I tried to visualise the psychological state from which they had sprung. Evidently they represented the quintessence of his experience; not man but God was in command here – in other words, not will and intention, but inscrutable design.”
C G Jung
Memories, Dreams, Reflections, p285f
Harper Perennial / Fontana Press, London, 1995
I wonder how much more at home we’d all be in this world if we rested in the knowledge that it is “God’s country”; that will and intention, however great and important they may be, can never trump inscrutable design.
What would the world look like if all humanity were able to “just sit down and don’t worry”, trusting in a life-provision – in a fundamentally benevolent design – that is, for all its nearness and immediacy, also truly unfathomable?
wind in my wheels 🌱 