As recently as the late twentieth century, coal miners descending into the poorly-ventilated depths were accompanied by caged canaries. Though an admittedly low-tech warning system, the metabolism of the bright yellow bird was sensitive to trace amounts of methane and carbon monoxide gases; the canary would die before concentrations of toxic gas reached levels hazardous to the miners. If the guardian canary stopped its customary chirping and, shall we say, assumed room temperature, miners were alerted to imminent danger and immediately evacuated from the mine.

What's the point of this cautionary tale? Just this. There are three remarkably common dispositions of a person's spirit that are actually "canaries of the soul"--harbingers of deeper troubles within. These dispositions include regret, fear, and impatience.

If your thoughts are consumed by regret, you're likely preoccupied by the past; if your thoughts are overwhelmed by fear, you're likely absorbed in the future. In either case, if you're fettered by either past or future, you're never fully alive and present in the, well, present. 

If, however, you are chiefly impatient--if you are always on your way to somewhere, (anywhere, perhaps, but here); if everything and everyone you encounter show up as interruptions; if you are frustrated, irritable, harsh, controlling, judgmental--there's good news and bad news. The good news is that you are indeed focused--on neither the past nor the future--but on the present; the bad news, especially for apprentices of Jesus, is that you're presently consumed by "your own stuff," by your own self-oriented agenda.

Regret, fear, and impatience are less vices to be overcome, than they are voices to be heard. They are canaries of the soul, guarding the innermost depths of our being, where coal is transformed into diamonds.

What are you sensing? What are you hearing?