Wondrous hope in the grace of Christ

What do you do when everyone and everything seems to be against you now that you have embarked on a new direction in life, started a new life's work or project you believe in?

Everyone, even strangers, seems to assume 'you're wrong' and tells you you can't do what you're trying to do. You can divert criticism for a while by insisting that: they are the ones that're wrong, and I am right, that I know what I am doing; they know nothing, they are nothing; they are the ones worth nothing; because I know more and am worth something, I am somebody!'; and you cling to a will-o'-the-wisp pride and self-esteem which is quickly slipping away, refusing to face the truth that you are struggling beyond your means.

They tell you to stop trying so hard, that it will only go as it will, and so to take it easy. Quit while you still can.

The answer both is and isn't to stop struggling.

Yes, you stop struggling in the sense of stop denying, resisting and refusing to accept reality.

But, you do not refuse the hardship of looking straight at the less-than-ideal self that you are running away from. You do not refuse the hardship of acknowledging what you are experiencing - that you are encountering a seemingly impenetrable wall, a seemingly endless frustration, a seemingly insurmountable impasse of "long hours of hard work with no results" with your life's project; and are taking it out on everyone and everything around you; perceiving slights, intended and unintended.

You do stop struggling in a sense that you acknowledge reality without resisting; you akcnowledge that you weren't as good or as advanced as you'd thought and wished you were; and reconsider soberly your current capabilities. You stop struggling in a sense that you acknowledge the reality of where you are now without beating yourself up with the futility of thinking why I can't have been more talented or why I can't improve faster.

You do not refuse the hardship of endless exercise, grueling training, increasingly challenging practice, observing and incorporating constructive feedback, diligent repetition etc. that is required for you to improve. You need to be telling yourself: this is where I am, not way better as I'd thought or wished; this wasn't as easy or as simple as I'd first assumed. You need to be returning constantly to the ideal of where you would really like to be, instead of harping on the need to see results now. You need to continue perhaps exactly what you have been doing but in a different state of mind: instead of clenching jaws and doing all with fierce will power, hang on to faith that God will provide the strength to continue even though you may not see immediate results and you feel that you cannot persevere.

You do not refuse the hardship of admitting that perhaps somewhere along the way you continued on with your endeavors for the wrong reasons: get ahead, make up for lost time, loss of faith = fear that your goal is escaping you, show someone that you're better than they, prove to yourself that you can go it alone, etc. Once you allow - despite the feeling that you are giving in to some evil force that is there to defeat you - that you are trying to do things yourself instead of trusting the process (training, progress, etc.); then at that very point of letting go though you feel you desperately need to keep going, you create an entry point for quickening, grace, hope and peace, and realize beyond all comprehension that you cannot do, and have not done, anything without God; you actually feel some force moving you toward your goal; that that movement or force had always been there; and you had been getting in its way rather than helping, by trying to make everything happen by yourself. Once you admit, allow, let go, trust, therein comes Christ to your midst and blessing to your endeavors.

Feel Younger

I was asked to show ID (for age verification) the other day when buying cough syrup at Target.... However, the best under-estimation of my 30-something age by far has been by my nephew. He suddenly decided to tell me his age while building train tracks:

"I'm 3!"

Then proceeded to ask me my age:

"Are you 5?"

We always confine the world around us to our small perspective; how limited we all can be when we don't realize that possibilities defy our best imagined guesses.

The Ouroboros - the snake that eats its own tail - is a Jungian archetype that denotes the initial, pre-conscious state of mind. (Plato describes it as the first living creature on earth - c. Timaeus. The creature having no eyes or ears or any senses, because there is only him in the world and nothing else.) Upon waking one morning, I had the image of an Ouroboros, breaking its circle, letting go of eating his own tail and uncoiling like a cat stretching out of sleep. At first I believed its symbolism to mean that I have (my mind has) unraveled from all the years of unproductive, circular, solipsistic futility, and have at last (re)gained full consciousness (Jungian 'individuation'). But I believe it is a process I will repeat time and again, especially when I start something new.

Taking heart

SI think I finally know what it means 'to take heart'. How disconnected I'd been! - Been trying to orchestrate my life and body from an outside standpoint somehow; when what I needed was to reside in the place deep within my body's living center (the heart) to respond to the more immediate, subtler, finer voice (like a liquid filament) that appears as vaporous threads unraveling from my heart. I'm happy there, perfectly blissful - and that gives me courage whenever I - my mind - believe I'm somehow failing in my efforts. All this time I'd been second guessing everything to do with myself, because I had been disconnected from this center, my heart. The heart of me. Not only of my body, but of my life, of 'me through time'.

In a way, I'd been trying to bypass the intricate system of involuntary communication that connects all of my body to one another via my brain, and replace it with a less intricate, bumbling, second-guessing one of conscious control via my conscious mind. I'd been doing double work! And all this time, all I had to do was reside in my heart, and let go of control. My body then moves freely to make itself more comfortable, more efficiently productive and nourished, perfectly happy when I would have imagined fatigue, boredom, impasse, defeat, etc., looking on anxiously from outside.

This must be the yoke that Jesus was talking about - 'my yoke is easy' - for all who labor (unnecessarily). I feel blessed, protected, safe, hopeful, blissful, quiet (peaceful), and in harmony with the ever-growing world that is ever being created to perfection.

So take on the yoke, and take heart!

Free

I have been released from the tyranny of reason and of the stomach. Odd combination, but true though related only indirectly. My mind does not know everything - yes, I knew this in theory, but somehow reverted to the opposite in practice. After thinking things through, I have to let go of my ideas for better ones to come or else always struggle, always go against the grain, always apply brute will power to bring things about... and for what, they fail most of the time. But the ideas that come from the ether - what the little bird tells me - never fail; and I believe that. Yes, Kant said, reason ends to leave room for faith. Christ left our physical, material world to awaken our faith. Believe!

As for my stomach - I realized I was always conscious of it in whatever I did; jogging; working; of course, eating and drinking. I was always concerned by its many sounds, sensations, degrees of full-/emptiness - all of which I could only guess and interpret with disastrous results. I now ignore it. It does not tell me when my body really needs this or that nutrition; it does not tell me when I have eaten enough of a particular food. (Mind you, reason does not tell me this either.) It can growl and churn and stop up and be achey all it wants, it will not stop me from running until I have run enough, eating when I really need to, or stopping eating when I do not need any more food. My mouth waters in a delightful way when I am hungry, and what my body needs tastes good. I am through with second-guessing my stomach, and the Japanese 80%-full mentality.

Eating is now a delightful pleasure. I am the thinnest I have been without trying.

Thinking and thought are a miraculous delight; ideas do not originate in reason; they come from the ether, the Universe Inside; I wait upon the Lord's good pleasure, and He (the Universe Inside) gives me my heart's desire.

In newness

My Biblical cosmology has changed. I now understand 'earthly things' as those material things, events and phenomena we can touch and see, etc., the physical domain; and the 'kingdom of heaven' as the ideal, eternal, infinite universe we live in our hearts and minds. The Universe Is Inside. And God is the God of the Universe. Christ is the Universe.