What I'm learning
Anxiety and nervousness beckon the need to write, have always beckoned the need to write - to get out the bad emotions that sit like a poison in my veins. It is out from this shakey ground that I have always written, out from this ravaged landscape that I have formed a structure. And it is from this place that I have found the spirit of truth approach with blazing hands and burning eyes. It is from here that I have been convicted and stood to shame and englightenment.
Today, I write from there again. Today, I stand from the wreckage of many things and of myself, and I struggle to strain my eyes to see. And this is what my mind has formed in the reflective pool of my soul out of the strange lines my eyes have caught.
In my lifetime, I have felt anger and rage and hatred toward many. Some of them deserved it, brought it on themselves, pushed until the floodgates broke. Others, simply did not. Still others have been protected from the vilest forms of base emotions simply by who they were in my mind.
I find none of these acceptable.
How can one who advocates peace and love turn to base emotions and useless hate? How can one who totes respect be disrespectful? How can one who advocates calm lose herself to the burning of such a hot blaze?
The seas of hurt and anger are closely connected and deep. They extend for ages on either side and go down into our bones and our blood and our souls. They can so quickly become the lamp by which we guide our feet, so easily be the compass by which we walk. For they are swift in their succor and easy in their adoption, and gratifying in their immeditate implication.
But, I am trying to move without them.
It leaves the road appearing bleak and dark, as if there were nothing ahead tangible or understandable. Perhaps there is not. But we must walk on ahead anyway.
In fact, now that I think of it, the road ahead has always been blank and undiscernable. We can not see the future; we cannot know what will come. But we guess at it and we struggle with it and we hope for the best of it. And when the worst comes, we must still stand.
If we wait on the sidelines hoping that someone else will make that stand for us, we will be found wanting when the time comes. And if we stand shakily by and flee instead of face the terrible tension that is being strung up before us, we will fall from the tightwire. For we are walking it no matter what and the tension will mount no matter what and we will face conflict no matter what.
I like what Martin Luther King Jr. had to say about tension, how there is a negative tension and a positive tension. How the negative tension is the illusion that we can live in a lack of tension, in slackness, in ease, in comfort. How positive tension is the tension that stirs us to make a new decision, that pushes us toward the right spirit of action.
It is this tension that I aim to create and to live in.
But, it is sometimes hard to keep the two separate, if only for the reason that others want to falsely mount tension in order to dispell the sort of positive tension that challenges their comfort and makes their lives uncomfortable. This, too, is bad tension. It is the tightening of the string to whip back at those who are attempting to walk well on it.
I am discovering much about life in these days. I am discovering that there are those who are quick to judge, and many times, I am one of them. I am discovering that compassion and self-giving love is the hardest type to have. I am discovering that there is a thin line between right and wrong, a careful balancing act in stating the truth but not becoming elitist. In struggling forward in rightness without walking on those who have not seen the same.
As of late, I so often wonder at what the Sons and Daughters of God have said and how they have solved this problem. I wonder at what Yeshua really did in his time. I wonder at what Gautama really saw in his people. I wonder at what Fuller really heard in his years of silence. I wonder at how people with great compassion and great hearts have not faultered and become judgemental and cruel.
I wonder at how compassion really functions in a self-loving world.
I wonder at how truth really reveals itself in a deceptive life.
And so, I continue to try in hopes that I will one day do something good. I continue to look in hopes that one day I will see something abundantly real. And I continue to write, in hopes that one day I will write something deeply true.
And yet, I must avoid the voice that says I am right, I am well, I am good. This voice is a hinderance to the goal. And, in the words of Eliot's Thomas A Beckett in:
'The last temptation is the greatest treason, to do the right deed for the wrong reason.'
If only I can say along with him, as well, 'Now is my way clear. Now is the meaning plain. Temptation shall not come in this kind again.'
But I have yet to reach the end of this journey and I have yet to see so clearly.
I can only try and remain humble to the fact that I am trying.
Today, I write from there again. Today, I stand from the wreckage of many things and of myself, and I struggle to strain my eyes to see. And this is what my mind has formed in the reflective pool of my soul out of the strange lines my eyes have caught.
In my lifetime, I have felt anger and rage and hatred toward many. Some of them deserved it, brought it on themselves, pushed until the floodgates broke. Others, simply did not. Still others have been protected from the vilest forms of base emotions simply by who they were in my mind.
I find none of these acceptable.
How can one who advocates peace and love turn to base emotions and useless hate? How can one who totes respect be disrespectful? How can one who advocates calm lose herself to the burning of such a hot blaze?
The seas of hurt and anger are closely connected and deep. They extend for ages on either side and go down into our bones and our blood and our souls. They can so quickly become the lamp by which we guide our feet, so easily be the compass by which we walk. For they are swift in their succor and easy in their adoption, and gratifying in their immeditate implication.
But, I am trying to move without them.
It leaves the road appearing bleak and dark, as if there were nothing ahead tangible or understandable. Perhaps there is not. But we must walk on ahead anyway.
In fact, now that I think of it, the road ahead has always been blank and undiscernable. We can not see the future; we cannot know what will come. But we guess at it and we struggle with it and we hope for the best of it. And when the worst comes, we must still stand.
If we wait on the sidelines hoping that someone else will make that stand for us, we will be found wanting when the time comes. And if we stand shakily by and flee instead of face the terrible tension that is being strung up before us, we will fall from the tightwire. For we are walking it no matter what and the tension will mount no matter what and we will face conflict no matter what.
I like what Martin Luther King Jr. had to say about tension, how there is a negative tension and a positive tension. How the negative tension is the illusion that we can live in a lack of tension, in slackness, in ease, in comfort. How positive tension is the tension that stirs us to make a new decision, that pushes us toward the right spirit of action.
It is this tension that I aim to create and to live in.
But, it is sometimes hard to keep the two separate, if only for the reason that others want to falsely mount tension in order to dispell the sort of positive tension that challenges their comfort and makes their lives uncomfortable. This, too, is bad tension. It is the tightening of the string to whip back at those who are attempting to walk well on it.
I am discovering much about life in these days. I am discovering that there are those who are quick to judge, and many times, I am one of them. I am discovering that compassion and self-giving love is the hardest type to have. I am discovering that there is a thin line between right and wrong, a careful balancing act in stating the truth but not becoming elitist. In struggling forward in rightness without walking on those who have not seen the same.
As of late, I so often wonder at what the Sons and Daughters of God have said and how they have solved this problem. I wonder at what Yeshua really did in his time. I wonder at what Gautama really saw in his people. I wonder at what Fuller really heard in his years of silence. I wonder at how people with great compassion and great hearts have not faultered and become judgemental and cruel.
I wonder at how compassion really functions in a self-loving world.
I wonder at how truth really reveals itself in a deceptive life.
And so, I continue to try in hopes that I will one day do something good. I continue to look in hopes that one day I will see something abundantly real. And I continue to write, in hopes that one day I will write something deeply true.
And yet, I must avoid the voice that says I am right, I am well, I am good. This voice is a hinderance to the goal. And, in the words of Eliot's Thomas A Beckett in:
'The last temptation is the greatest treason, to do the right deed for the wrong reason.'
If only I can say along with him, as well, 'Now is my way clear. Now is the meaning plain. Temptation shall not come in this kind again.'
But I have yet to reach the end of this journey and I have yet to see so clearly.
I can only try and remain humble to the fact that I am trying.
2 Thought(s):
Once again I am at a loss for words. If only I were a writer such as yourself I could tell you how your words encourage & stir my spirit. Yet they also cause my heart to a ache, for your words echo my own journey. The scars from life can run deep and some wounds never heal. You are right: we must tarry on... and you are doing it so beautifully.
You, my friend, are abundantly Real.
The process -the journey- is as important as a destination. The journey is what is good, even with all the stop signs, u-turns, yellow lights & crashes. It is on this journey that humility is cultivated.
Humility shows us the path toward love. We might not reach Love & Truth until eternity but we are on the path, nonetheless. Walking the road with each other, together in humility & authenticity, can light the road ahead... or at least it can leave footsteps for those behind us to follow. And that is good.
Thank you so much for sharing the road.
MarcellaC
Marcella, your words are wonderful, uplifting, and stirring. I thank you for hearing my calling out from this darkness and understanding the spirit of that call.
You speak such truth in regards to humility. It is such a difficult reaction to cultivate, and I hope I am heading toward it rather than running from it. So often, we do run from it with our eyes covered and our ears shut. Sometimes, it feels that I run from it so fast that I run into myself.
And disaster occurs.
But, I try to get back up on my feet.
Thank you for the encouragement. And let us always walk together forward toward Love.
Post a Comment
<< Home