(a short meditation prompted by something my wife said)
The other day, in passing, my wife told me about someone who used to walk — and even ride a bicycle — “seriously,” with his hands in his pockets. My first reaction was to laugh: “Seriously?!” — because the same word can either strengthen a claim (“that’s really how he went about it”) or express astonished disbelief at what you’ve just heard. The word folds back on itself: she says it to affirm something true, and I say it back to marvel at it.
But beyond the wordplay, the image itself stayed with me: a man walking — and especially pedaling — with his hands hidden away, holding onto nothing. It’s an image of rashness, of carelessness toward oneself, a kind of boldness that isn’t courage at all, but indifference to the real danger right in front of him.
And it struck me that this is exactly the road many of us walk in our spiritual life — we go “seriously” (meaning, we think, with resolve) along the narrow path, yet with our hands in our pockets: without watchfulness, without attentiveness, without anything to hold onto when temptation or danger comes. We move through life with a self-assurance that isn’t humility, but carelessness dressed up as calm.
The Apostle Paul leaves no room for such ease: “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12). Not with hands tucked away, but with our whole being strained toward God. And the Apostle Peter adds the image of watchfulness as the stance of a fighter, not a stroller: “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8).
And so, perhaps, the only fitting answer to our own carelessness is the very astonishment that caught me listening to my wife’s words — a “Seriously?!” aimed at myself, a brief moment of waking, like that of the people on the day of Pentecost, who “were pricked in their heart” hearing Peter’s word (Acts 2:37). Perhaps we need, from time to time, to be seriously astonished at ourselves — at how carelessly we walk a path that, in truth, demands our full attention.
