I was sitting in a coffee shop yesterday down in the Quartier des Spectacles section of town when I fell to thinking about a comment I had received here in the Cafe. The comment boiled down to how we might navigate these seemingly difficult times, a dilemma many conscientious souls are wrestling with today. 

  And the truth is the Omphalos Cafe IS my response to that question. 

  For what are we to work for in a confused disoriented world? What can we throw our hearts, minds and energies into today which has deeper and richer meaning than merely ourselves? 

  Sure I see a ton of worthy causes, well-meaning and even noble opportunities to volunteer, to donate time and effort towards. But what if for some of us those causes seem like bandaids on a much more widespread existential problem? 

  There’s the rub, as the saying goes. 

  Here at the Cafe you could say I am working towards something else, something much harder to put a finger on or point towards. 

  And pondering these sort of things in the coffee shop yesterday I wrote down these strange words: 

  Rome wasn’t built in a day; nor was the Christianity that would grow from the rotting corpse of its dying pagan civilization. Now numerous parallels have been drawn between dying Rome and modern Western Civilization and in particular its hegemonic leader America. For instance The Hunger Games and Francis Ford Coppola’s recent Megalopolis readily come to mind. But how many parallels have been drawn between the nascent budding Christianity within dying pagan Rome and what is very gradually taking shape within our hearts and minds and is struggling to be born from all the spiritual questioning and seeking going on today? 

  Few to none that I know of. 

  If you’re new here, welcome to the Omphalos Cafe. 

  Where Life is ALL there is….!

Where are the points of light and Life for you today? Let’s have some fun with it at omphaloscafe@gmail.com!