The Elusive Search

by Mary Keen, M.Div., LMFT

612.332.7743 ext. 220
mkeen@wpc-mpls.org

Jazzy is our beagle. Her name fits. Jazzy is active, loud and joyful. One of her favorite activities, besides barking, is futile attempts to catch light's reflections or shadows. The morning sun beams through the eastern windows and dances across the wood floor and the carpet. Jazzy tries to capture the movement. She prepares for the capture. Her hind legs positioned for quick jump attacks, her eyes intent on the movement, her mouth open, watering, preparing for the fatal bite that will finally consume the precocious dancing light. In a moment of decision, she pounces, successfully biting the spot where the light's reflection rested for a second. She never succeeds. The light moves. That which seemed so close, so visible, so attainable, evades her skillfully executed attack. Frayed carpet is the only remnant of her rigorous attempts.

Sometimes people seek the elusive, with as much intensity and drive as our beagle. Some seek fame, some wealth. Some seek wisdom, some seek visions. Some seek excitement, some seek contentment. The list of desires is as varied as humanity. Unlike our beagle, who will never capture the light, we can attain what we seek. We may discover, however that what we've sought, even as we hold it in our grasp, is as elusive and deceptive as light's shadows. Other dilemmas surface. We attain fame, but we may lose privacy. We may attain wealth, but we've lost our humility. We wise up and lose our innocence. We see visions and get stung by reality. We get excited and become bored with the ordinary. We reach contentment but lose our drive. Not always, but sometimes, what we seek is only a dancing reflection, lost as quickly as attained. Yet have we really been tricked?

Jazzy cannot stop her quest to capture the light, until the light passes the eastern window. She is doing what she was bred to do. Chase, hunt, capture. We too seek that which we believe will better our lives, just as we have been created to do. Seek, explore, investigate, reach, attain. The ancient scriptures remind us of others' quests that mirror our own. Jeremiah states: "you will seek and find me, when you seek with your whole heart." (Jer. 29:13) Jesus reminded his disciples to "ask and it will be given, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened." (Matt 7:6-9) The Buddha affirmed to his followers, "when the student is ready, the teacher appears." As we prepare to seek a goal, an answer, a direction the ancients assure us we will be successful. Our capture may be different than we expected. Perhaps, we gain most from the search rather than the actual find. For the search is really about who we are and who we could be.