The Profundity in the Daily

 

            I did have a fancier title in mind, but was not sure anyone would actually read it.  I wanted to say we find profundity in the quotidian.  However, I know if I used that Latin-rooted word, it is likely many readers would have no clue what it means.  Unlike a classroom setting where I know students would not have a clue, I cannot pursue someone online and say something like, “wait a minute…quotidian simply means daily.”  I like to teach college students new words, but again when we are online, you don’t have that chance.

            In fact, the real point is not a fancy Latin word.  The real point is to learn that there are places where we are likely to find or encounter profundity.  It is expected that we would find normalcy in our daily lives.  That is probably one meaning of daily.  Daily is what we normally would do or normally would think.  More than likely, we don’t expect to find profundity in the daily.  Somehow, we think profundity is special; it is even rare.  Our daily lives is not where we would expect to find it.

            I don’t want to argue some case as much as suggest if we only expect to find something profound when we are in special places or in a special day, then we will never have much profundity.  Maybe this is the point at which it is good to revisit the meaning of profundity.  While I don’t expect most folks to know what quotidian means, I suspect most folks think they know what profound means. 

            Profound means some deep insights.  It points to a depth of knowledge or perhaps even experience.  Profundity gets close to what many of us think is wisdom.  I do believe wisdom is a form of profundity.  This becomes a clue how we might discover profundity, that is, by considering how we become wise.  Again, most folks know that wisdom comes with some experience.  This is why young folks are not as likely to be wise.  One definition of wisdom I like is to say wisdom is knowledge plus experience.  That will suffice for the time being.  If I can put together the knowledge I have with the experience I have, then likely I am to have insight into something that the average person does not have.

            To the unwise, any wisdom may seem pretty profound.  Wow is a typical response to someone’s insight that smacks of wisdom.  We are intrigued by what someone “knows” or “understands.”  It is an easy move to see why someone like Jesus is perceived to be a teacher of wisdom.  Jesus is not just some smart guy.  He has experience.  He has insight.  Indeed, it may have seemed like he could literally “look inside” someone or some situation and emerge with insight, wisdom and profundity.  So often in the encounter with Jesus, people would exclaim, “Wow.”

            Of course, Jesus is not the only wise person that folks know and love.  Other figures like the Buddha, the Prophet and other historical religious figures also have brought insights into human life and our world that are transformational.  They literally have changed lives and changed world views.  And when you read some of the literature of these wisdom teachers, their insight and wisdom comes out of the daily nature of their lives.  Of course, they sometimes do something special---like go off to a cave or sit under a true---but more likely, they simply are living their daily lives in a way they discover the profundity in the midst of their quotidian lives.

            My sense is that is exactly where most of us will find profundity, too.  For sure, we read the stuff from the religious giants and become knowledgeable.  I can spout Buddhist teachings or memorize the New Testament, but we already have seen that knowledge alone is not wisdom nor necessarily profound.  We can be smart and not at all transformed.  It seems to me most major religious traditions want to say, how can you know all this and still be the same?  Knowledge becomes wisdom when it affects your experience and your life takes on depth, breadth and so forth.  Knowledge becomes profound when it positively affects your relationships and activities in such a way that you become a difference-maker in a world that needs healing and whole makers. 

            The good news is all of us can discover the profundity in our daily lives.  But it is not automatic.  This is especially true in our contemporary world which unfortunately seems to be organized to lead us away from insight, wisdom and profundity.  We way so many of us live our daily lives is a way of life that is incredibly busy and distracted.  Busyness by itself is usually sufficient to deflect us from discovering profundity.  And when we perceive busyness to be a badge of importance, we are even less likely to become a discoverer of profundity. 

            So if there is a trick in any of this, the trick probably is learning to live our daily lives a little differently.  We need to choose to do our quotidian life with a little more awareness and a bit more reflection.  We need not only to have experiences, but to learn from them.  We learn to be open to what our daily life can teach us, rather than complain about it being boring.  It is simple stuff like learning to be present instead of wishing we were somewhere else.  However, the bottom line is our daily lives do bring a profundity.  Our privilege is to discover it.