I want to start up again with the following because I think
it may hold a facet of a most important truth, and yet more than just words not
being able to hold that truth, it gets that truth somewhat wrong.
Our faith is obscured by our refusal to accept our current internal (feelings and thoughts) and external reality. If as I believe, God is creation from its beginning though eternity (or even if simply still present as the Holy Spirit), when we refuse to accept our current reality, this is precisely what separates us from Him/It, and to the extent we do, that refusal makes us the dead burying the dead.
The path to LIFE (as Jesus taught), aka path to the Father, is by having faith (as Jesus taught), which means knowing wholeness/connection with the Father/Holy Spirit/Entirety is the only thing that ultimately matters and that wholeness can only be found to the extent we stop rejecting the parts that scare us, within us as well as in our surroundings. Let me say that much more simply. LIFE is embracing Reality by having sufficient faith to equal or surpass the fear of being whole with It.
The exact opposite of this, the dead burying the dead, which we all do, is trying to create an alternative reality where things are not so scary and we do not need such faith, probably including most peoples’ concept of heaven, which doesn’t seem much different than everyone there taking an eternally acting euphoric drug. This concept of heaven is basically saying they deserve the right to be eternally numbed from LIFE because they have so successfully rejected/avoided it. I do not begrudge them and if they cannot find and choose the real thing (LIFE) I genuinely hope they get the heaven they want, although I doubt that one exists.
If the crazy things I am saying are actually somewhat correct, how then specifically do we choose this LIFE, which if we can we will find to be bottomless Grace. It turns out to be an inside job because to the extent we find wholeness within ourselves, we will realize we have always been and always will be an inseparable part of everything else/God. The thing that blocks us from knowing we are inescapably a part of everything else is the pain we have experienced allowing ourselves to be deeply connected to things beyond us, and the fear of more pain if we allow ourselves to be whole and present today. Part of our wholeness with things beyond ourselves is vulnerability, which is real. However, as previously mentioned we are inescapably a part of everything else whether we realize it or admit it or not and thus vulnerable whether we admit it or not. So spending most of our lives trying to avoid this inescapable vulnerability is how most of us waste most of our life and opportunities to experience and thus know LIFE/Grace.
I am not saying we need to go out of our way to allow or make ourselves vulnerable, but we do need to find ways to accept our inescapable inherent vulnerability. This might be in prayer and meditation or communing with nature or having a heart to heart with a close friend or singing and dancing or doing something kind for someone else with no strings attached or allowing someone to do the same for us or many other ways. Whatever it might be we will need all the faith we can muster if we are going to truly allow ourselves to be vulnerable and present in that moment without internally walling off a part of ourselves. Just as importantly we will need to give ourselves the freedom and right to choose when and how we do this. It will only be sustainable and not exploited to everyone’s detriment if we allow ourselves that gift, and we need to at least start to believe the good news, that if we do allow ourselves this freedom and work to become whole we will want absolutely nothing more than to be kind and generous.
Slowly becoming more and more internally whole in this manner we will automatically find ourselves more whole with everything else. We will find ourselves more and more willing and able and wanting to do things for others without any strings attached. After all we are now whole with them and a part of a larger whole with them and doing something for them is doing at least as much for that whole that includes us. The thing that creates the strings is our unwillingness to accept our vulnerability, which prevents us from knowing or embracing our wholeness with them, which makes us feel/think we need to be repaid (have strings) for the things we do for others.
(Let me interject a quick side note here that I am not saying every relationship we have can be or even ought to be based upon each freely giving as they want. For one thing it is absolutely necessary that we have relationships with those not capable of this if we are going to bring new wholeness to the world, but even beyond that all relationships need to have basic negotiations and understandings for minimal baseline expectations from which each party can go above and beyond with generosity as they feel compelled.)
To related this to a post of yours a couple weeks ago, in a nutshell I am saying to the extent we try to bypass this life in a spiritual manner, we miss out on both, and conversely, to the extent we embrace our current messy life we find what all the great spiritual teachers and many of the great philosophers are trying to convey.
To conclude, let me confess that I am only decent at the things I am discussing here. I truly used to be awful though and these are my observations on that journey so far from awful to decent, with decent meaning I have my doubts that I am even average yet.
Our faith is obscured by our refusal to accept our current internal (feelings and thoughts) and external reality. If as I believe, God is creation from its beginning though eternity (or even if simply still present as the Holy Spirit), when we refuse to accept our current reality, this is precisely what separates us from Him/It, and to the extent we do, that refusal makes us the dead burying the dead.
The path to LIFE (as Jesus taught), aka path to the Father, is by having faith (as Jesus taught), which means knowing wholeness/connection with the Father/Holy Spirit/Entirety is the only thing that ultimately matters and that wholeness can only be found to the extent we stop rejecting the parts that scare us, within us as well as in our surroundings. Let me say that much more simply. LIFE is embracing Reality by having sufficient faith to equal or surpass the fear of being whole with It.
The exact opposite of this, the dead burying the dead, which we all do, is trying to create an alternative reality where things are not so scary and we do not need such faith, probably including most peoples’ concept of heaven, which doesn’t seem much different than everyone there taking an eternally acting euphoric drug. This concept of heaven is basically saying they deserve the right to be eternally numbed from LIFE because they have so successfully rejected/avoided it. I do not begrudge them and if they cannot find and choose the real thing (LIFE) I genuinely hope they get the heaven they want, although I doubt that one exists.
If the crazy things I am saying are actually somewhat correct, how then specifically do we choose this LIFE, which if we can we will find to be bottomless Grace. It turns out to be an inside job because to the extent we find wholeness within ourselves, we will realize we have always been and always will be an inseparable part of everything else/God. The thing that blocks us from knowing we are inescapably a part of everything else is the pain we have experienced allowing ourselves to be deeply connected to things beyond us, and the fear of more pain if we allow ourselves to be whole and present today. Part of our wholeness with things beyond ourselves is vulnerability, which is real. However, as previously mentioned we are inescapably a part of everything else whether we realize it or admit it or not and thus vulnerable whether we admit it or not. So spending most of our lives trying to avoid this inescapable vulnerability is how most of us waste most of our life and opportunities to experience and thus know LIFE/Grace.
I am not saying we need to go out of our way to allow or make ourselves vulnerable, but we do need to find ways to accept our inescapable inherent vulnerability. This might be in prayer and meditation or communing with nature or having a heart to heart with a close friend or singing and dancing or doing something kind for someone else with no strings attached or allowing someone to do the same for us or many other ways. Whatever it might be we will need all the faith we can muster if we are going to truly allow ourselves to be vulnerable and present in that moment without internally walling off a part of ourselves. Just as importantly we will need to give ourselves the freedom and right to choose when and how we do this. It will only be sustainable and not exploited to everyone’s detriment if we allow ourselves that gift, and we need to at least start to believe the good news, that if we do allow ourselves this freedom and work to become whole we will want absolutely nothing more than to be kind and generous.
Slowly becoming more and more internally whole in this manner we will automatically find ourselves more whole with everything else. We will find ourselves more and more willing and able and wanting to do things for others without any strings attached. After all we are now whole with them and a part of a larger whole with them and doing something for them is doing at least as much for that whole that includes us. The thing that creates the strings is our unwillingness to accept our vulnerability, which prevents us from knowing or embracing our wholeness with them, which makes us feel/think we need to be repaid (have strings) for the things we do for others.
(Let me interject a quick side note here that I am not saying every relationship we have can be or even ought to be based upon each freely giving as they want. For one thing it is absolutely necessary that we have relationships with those not capable of this if we are going to bring new wholeness to the world, but even beyond that all relationships need to have basic negotiations and understandings for minimal baseline expectations from which each party can go above and beyond with generosity as they feel compelled.)
To related this to a post of yours a couple weeks ago, in a nutshell I am saying to the extent we try to bypass this life in a spiritual manner, we miss out on both, and conversely, to the extent we embrace our current messy life we find what all the great spiritual teachers and many of the great philosophers are trying to convey.
To conclude, let me confess that I am only decent at the things I am discussing here. I truly used to be awful though and these are my observations on that journey so far from awful to decent, with decent meaning I have my doubts that I am even average yet.
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