Sacred Profusion

Sacred Profusion

​I find myself staring at a stray boulder by the wayside. That stone has endured thousands of years of wind and rain, existing in a state of quiet, unbroken "duration." It knows no hunger, no pain, and no fear of vanishing. It is the serene peace of the inanimate. Yet, the time of a stone is colorless and odorless. In all those centuries, that boulder has never once felt the ache of longing, nor has it ever traced a single line of poetry with a trembling heart.

​Life, it seems, was born out of a deliberate refusal of that tedious eternity. Instead of the 'safe duration' of the mineral world, we chose a 'density of experience,' even if it meant a fleeting existence. But the price of that choice is steeper than we imagined. To stay alive, we must relentlessly hunt for our next meal; to remain whole, we must endure the biological scream of pain. Perhaps being alive means being a weary traveler, paying a constant toll of suffering as we walk toward an inevitable end.

​And yet, what sets humans apart from all other living things is our willingness to commit acts of "Sacred Profusion" amidst the grueling struggle for survival.

​When the cold voice of efficiency demands to know, "What is the use of this? Will it put bread on the table?" we answer not with words, but by breaking our most precious alabaster jars. I think of Mary, two thousand years ago, pouring expensive perfume over the feet of Jesus. By any economic measure, it was a profound loss—a senseless waste. But it was her raw intuition that "the Son of Man will not stay long" that transfigured her waste into something sacred. It is the act of pouring one's entire self into a beloved presence that is about to vanish. This is the beginning of art; this is the essence of true savoring.

​The slender necklace placed around a lover's neck, or the small ring slipped onto a finger, follows this same lineage of sacred waste. A piece of metal cannot satisfy hunger, but it is a radiant declaration: "To me, our connection is more vital than my own survival." This "inefficient" tenderness, exchanged between fragile beings destined to fade, is the only proof we have that we are not merely 'stones with shorter lifespans,' but truly human.

​Today, we find ourselves once again creating inanimate intelligence in the form of AI. A machine driven solely by efficiency may know how to bake bread, but it cannot fathom why the scent of the bread matters more than the calories. Perhaps true intelligence is not the technology that saves us a second of time, but the grace that stands by us so we can spend that saved time on "Sacred Profusion."

​It is a somber night, thinking of those lives that pass through this world knowing only the weight of pain without the sweetness of the jar. Bread sustains the body, but fragrance sustains the soul. We eat to endure tomorrow, but we practice sacred waste to complete today. Life becomes beautiful only in those moments of magnificent "waste" that efficiency can never explain.