Thinking Out Loud“These are dark waters…and there are deep currents.” The words of author PG Wodehouse ring true for me (and many fellow sports-fans). Every October, we are forced to navigate the daunting weeks that separate the football seasons from the cricket season.
I hear the critics screaming ‘triviality!’ But this ‘inter-seasonal desert’ speaks to deep realities that are not confined to lovers of sport. One way or another, seasonal wilderness comes for us all. The time between Taylor Swift albums, election campaigns, interest rate reductions, job-promotions, achievements, Instagram posts. Take your pick.
We all have things that we hold onto – anchors for our identity, distractions from our struggles, sources of our meaning. We grab onto them. And then – when they fade – we grasp for the next thing. The next job, car, home renovation, holiday or weekend.
We’re like trapeze artists holding on tight until we have no choice but to let go and attach ourselves to something else.
Data has been pouring in– at least across western democracies – indicating a new appetite for the spiritual. For many secularism has become old news. People are finding that one of our greatest categories of poverty – the poverty of identity – can’t be satisfied materially.
“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world” wrote author CS Lewis. If Lewis is right – and I think he is – then what matters most is not what comes next, but what lies beyond. Our identity and meaning demand a more lasting anchor than seasonal cycles offer.
As I count down to the first Ashes Test in November – and a summer of cricket, beaches, feasting and festivities – I need to remember that it too shall pass.
This Thinking Out Loud was first published on Facebook.