Contentment Seeking

Contentment. I have been thinking over contentment daily for the last week and my mind keeps going to the idea of loss. Perhaps, I have a weak mind or perhaps, how one deals with loss is a key component in contentment or the judge of contentment...?

Another revisited thought this week, is how describing contentment differs from describing blessings.? When a person describes their contentment, they usually run off a list of areas in which they have been blessed, as if to re-convince themselves that they are content or to remind themselves of why they should be if they are not. Are the "haves" required for contentment? I can run off a list a mile long of all that I have and all the ways that I have been blessed. Or is there something beneath this? Could it be that what we have or how we have been blessed does not determine contentment but rather, how we interpret "what is"? Our action done, as oppose to the action done to us (or for us, etc).

This weekend, I was in Chicago for a friend's wedding. As I was driving down Lake Shore Drive, watching the bikers and runners move along the bike path that stretches the length of the city, along the waters edge, I caught myself reminiscing. I was thinking of a time when I spent several hours a day biking that path. To me, it is one of the most desirable places in the world. Then the ache came on and the questions, most of which starting in "why."

How does contentment intermingle with loss?

I do not always do it right. I often find myself trapped in the pain of a loss. But this weekend, I began to think about how having been a part of that bike path was a blessing and how it would be wonderful to look on many other places with the same familiarity and desire. The thought or the action lead to what I felt to be a beautiful contentment.