23 posts tagged “hope”
Ben showed me this article today. It is really very interesting. To be honest, this is the kind of love I aspire to be able to show to people. I just hope I am strong enough throughout my life to live up to these goals.
(I copied the text for those who can't get the link to work)
Those Aren’t Fighting Words, Dear
LET’S say you have what you believe to be a healthy marriage. You’re still friends and lovers after spending more than half of your lives together. The dreams you set out to achieve in your 20s — gazing into each other’s eyes in candlelit city bistros when you were single and skinny — have for the most part come true.
Two decades later you have the 20 acres of land, the farmhouse, the children, the dogs and horses. You’re the parents you said you would be, full of love and guidance. You’ve done it all: Disneyland, camping, Hawaii, Mexico, city living, stargazing.
Sure, you have your marital issues, but on the whole you feel so self-satisfied about how things have worked out that you would never, in your wildest nightmares, think you would hear these words from your husband one fine summer day: “I don’t love you anymore. I’m not sure I ever did. I’m moving out. The kids will understand. They’ll want me to be happy.”
But wait. This isn’t the divorce story you think it is. Neither is it a begging-him-to-stay story. It’s a story about hearing your husband say “I don’t love you anymore” and deciding not to believe him. And what can happen as a result.
Here’s a visual: Child throws a temper tantrum. Tries to hit his mother. But the mother doesn’t hit back, lecture or punish. Instead, she ducks. Then she tries to go about her business as if the tantrum isn’t happening. She doesn’t “reward” the tantrum. She simply doesn’t take the tantrum personally because, after all, it’s not about her.
Let me be clear: I’m not saying my husband was throwing a child’s tantrum. No. He was in the grip of something else — a profound and far more troubling meltdown that comes not in childhood but in midlife, when we perceive that our personal trajectory is no longer arcing reliably upward as it once did. But I decided to respond the same way I’d responded to my children’s tantrums. And I kept responding to it that way. For four months.
“I don’t love you anymore. I’m not sure I ever did.”
His words came at me like a speeding fist, like a sucker punch, yet somehow in that moment I was able to duck. And once I recovered and composed myself, I managed to say, “I don’t buy it.” Because I didn’t.
He drew back in surprise. Apparently he’d expected me to burst into tears, to rage at him, to threaten him with a custody battle. Or beg him to change his mind.
So he turned mean. “I don’t like what you’ve become.”
Gut-wrenching pause. How could he say such a thing? That’s when I really wanted to fight. To rage. To cry. But I didn’t.
Instead, a shroud of calm enveloped me, and I repeated those words: “I don’t buy it.”
You see, I’d recently committed to a non-negotiable understanding with myself. I’d committed to “The End of Suffering.” I’d finally managed to exile the voices in my head that told me my personal happiness was only as good as my outward success, rooted in things that were often outside my control. I’d seen the insanity of that equation and decided to take responsibility for my own happiness. And I mean all of it.
My husband hadn’t yet come to this understanding with himself. He had enjoyed many years of hard work, and its rewards had supported our family of four all along. But his new endeavor hadn’t been going so well, and his ability to be the breadwinner was in rapid decline. He’d been miserable about this, felt useless, was losing himself emotionally and letting himself go physically. And now he wanted out of our marriage; to be done with our family.
But I wasn’t buying it.
I said: “It’s not age-appropriate to expect children to be concerned with their parents’ happiness. Not unless you want to create co-dependents who’ll spend their lives in bad relationships and therapy. There are times in every relationship when the parties involved need a break. What can we do to give you the distance you need, without hurting the family?”
“Huh?” he said.“Go trekking in Nepal. Build a yurt in the back meadow. Turn the garage studio into a man-cave. Get that drum set you’ve always wanted. Anything but hurting the children and me with a reckless move like the one you’re talking about.”
Then I repeated my line, “What can we do to give you the distance you need, without hurting the family?”
“Huh?”
“How can we have a responsible distance?”
“I don’t want distance,” he said. “I want to move out.”
My mind raced. Was it another woman? Drugs? Unconscionable secrets? But I stopped myself. I would not suffer.
Instead, I went to my desk, Googled “responsible separation” and came up with a list. It included things like: Who’s allowed to use what credit cards? Who are the children allowed to see you with in town? Who’s allowed keys to what?
I looked through the list and passed it on to him.
His response: “Keys? We don’t even have keys to our house.”
I remained stoic. I could see pain in his eyes. Pain I recognized.
“Oh, I see what you’re doing,” he said. “You’re going to make me go into therapy. You’re not going to let me move out. You’re going to use the kids against me.”
“I never said that. I just asked: What can we do to give you the distance you need ... ”
“Stop saying that!”
Well, he didn’t move out.
Instead, he spent the summer being unreliable. He stopped coming home at his usual six o’clock. He would stay out late and not call. He blew off our entire Fourth of July — the parade, the barbecue, the fireworks — to go to someone else’s party. When he was at home, he was distant. He wouldn’t look me in the eye. He didn’t even wish me “Happy Birthday.”
But I didn’t play into it. I walked my line. I told the kids: “Daddy’s having a hard time as adults often do. But we’re a family, no matter what.” I was not going to suffer. And neither were they.
MY trusted friends were irate on my behalf. “How can you just stand by and accept this behavior? Kick him out! Get a lawyer!”
I walked my line with them, too. This man was hurting, yet his problem wasn’t mine to solve. In fact, I needed to get out of his way so he could solve it.
I know what you’re thinking: I’m a pushover. I’m weak and scared and would put up with anything to keep the family together. I’m probably one of those women who would endure physical abuse. But I can assure you, I’m not. I load 1,500-pound horses into trailers and gallop through the high country of Montana all summer. I went through Pitocin-induced natural childbirth. And a Caesarean section without follow-up drugs. I am handy with a chain saw.
I simply had come to understand that I was not at the root of my husband’s problem. He was. If he could turn his problem into a marital fight, he could make it about us. I needed to get out of the way so that wouldn’t happen.
Privately, I decided to give him time. Six months.
I had good days, and I had bad days. On the good days, I took the high road. I ignored his lashing out, his merciless jabs. On bad days, I would fester in the August sun while the kids ran through sprinklers, raging at him in my mind. But I never wavered. Although it may sound ridiculous to say “Don’t take it personally” when your husband tells you he no longer loves you, sometimes that’s exactly what you have to do.
Instead of issuing ultimatums, yelling, crying or begging, I presented him with options. I created a summer of fun for our family and welcomed him to share in it, or not — it was up to him. If he chose not to come along, we would miss him, but we would be just fine, thank you very much. And we were.
And, yeah, you can bet I wanted to sit him down and persuade him to stay. To love me. To fight for what we’ve created. You can bet I wanted to.
But I didn’t.
I barbecued. Made lemonade. Set the table for four. Loved him from afar.
And one day, there he was, home from work early, mowing the lawn. A man doesn’t mow his lawn if he’s going to leave it. Not this man. Then he fixed a door that had been broken for eight years. He made a comment about our front porch needing paint. Our front porch. He mentioned needing wood for next winter. The future. Little by little, he started talking about the future.
It was Thanksgiving dinner that sealed it. My husband bowed his head humbly and said, “I’m thankful for my family.”
He was back.
And I saw what had been missing: pride. He’d lost pride in himself. Maybe that’s what happens when our egos take a hit in midlife and we realize we’re not as young and golden anymore.
When life’s knocked us around. And our childhood myths reveal themselves to be just that. The truth feels like the biggest sucker-punch of them all: it’s not a spouse or land or a job or money that brings us happiness. Those achievements, those relationships, can enhance our happiness, yes, but happiness has to start from within. Relying on any other equation can be lethal.
My husband had become lost in the myth. But he found his way out. We’ve since had the hard conversations. In fact, he encouraged me to write about our ordeal. To help other couples who arrive at this juncture in life. People who feel scared and stuck. Who believe their temporary feelings are permanent. Who see an easy out, and think they can escape.
My husband tried to strike a deal. Blame me for his pain. Unload his feelings of personal disgrace onto me.
But I ducked. And I waited. And it worked.So, I'm having an interesting discussion with a friend on a message board. He belongs to the Orthodox Church, believes that no one goes to Hell when they die, and thinks that Jesus' message was primarily about *this* life and not the next. So far I agree.
Our discussion is centered around the events in Christ's life, and whether them actually taking place in the time line has any affect on the meaning derived from them. I'm quite enjoying this discussion, so I'm going to paste some parts of it here for remembrance sake...and for anyone who wishes to continue it. :)
*****
I guess I find so much meaning in the story that I'm not sure what affect its historicity would have on its impact?
I mean, say we had the bible, but the names were all changed...would it still have the same power? If it doesn't, is it a meaningful difference, or does it just have less power because it's not what we are used to? Or, say someone came up with undeniable proof that Jesus never existed at all, would that shake your faith?
I see your point here. And I know for a great many people throughout history it has been somewhat of a security blanket that gives them courage and strengthens their faith. But, I guess, that's exactly my point. It's a huge comfort, and since when did Jesus tell us to seek comfort? Again, I'm not arguing that the story *wasn't* historically true, I just think that we tend to be way too attached to that aspect, and it can limit our understanding so that we miss some of the most profound and meaningful things in the story itself.I think it was important to them for a number of reasons, including validation of Jesus' claims, encouragement in their sorrow, hope that they share the same fate, and confidence that they could now risk their lives and do anything they dreamt of.
I guess I am just wary of attachment to particulars.
For me, even thinking that the story may be entirely myth, I still find incredible power in it. My life experience validates Jesus' claims. The concepts in the story give me encouragement in my sorrows and hope for my own resurrection (mainly in my life here, but sure after death too). It doesn't always give me the courage to risk everything and follow my dreams, because often my vision is clouded by fear. But when I am calm and centered, I see clearly and that courage comes to me in waves. I worry that a courage based on a particular historical event is a way to deny that fear. It's a subtle underlying aspect of human life, and it cannot be denied.
The only way to be rid of it is, as through Jesus' example, letting it in and not avoiding it. It's a subtle thing I'm talking about, how someone might push down a feeling of fear because of their unshattering faith in a particular event...versus understanding what that event tries to show us (regardless of whether it happened that way or not) and listening to that advice and being open and receptive...even to fear and suffering.
It did have to happen, in the story, because of what it means. Because of how it teaches us. It would make sense that Jesus would acknowledge that it has to happen, because part of his point is that even seeing something like this looming up ahead in our future, we must not be afraid, for there is nothing to fear. If you imagine Jesus' prediction as a literary device in the story of the resurrection, it makes a lot of sense. Not that it can't be real as well, but it seems that the meaning is there regardless.Let's not forget though that it was important to Jesus too. For some reason, it had to happen, he predicted that it would, and told his followers to look forward to it.
Do you really think the Bible becomes empty and meaningless if these events didn't happen? Acknowledging that the events may not have taken place in real life does not take away from the profundity and the *truth* found in the story. This story puts into beautiful and precise terms what so many other stories try to get at...some with better success than others. It speaks directly to our hearts the way only stories can. And there are echoes of these truths in almost every story we write, in almost every life we live. But here we have it unclouded by the fear in our normal stories. Jesus is a character without fear (or rather, who does not act of fear), without sin, and the huge tragedy in his life puts God's lessons to us practically in neon lights.But as to why it should be important historically, I guess I don't really have an answer right now, but it seems inseparable from the story, to me anyway. Perhaps they are pat Christian answers, but if it's just a story, and never happened, and the Son of God didn't exist, and the Incarnation didn't really happen, I'm forced ask what the point would even be then? Besides just trying to be a better person by modeling your life after a character in a story. And the Gospels, as well as the other NT writings, and the writings of those shortly thereafter, place great importance upon these events really happening.
It's so much more than just trying to be a better person. It's discovering the path to truth, to life. It's trusting in the process, even if it looks like it is leading you toward death...because the path to death is a path to rebirth. It teaches us that there is no need to fear, ever. And that love is a never ending spring; the more you pour out of yourself the more you have. It is about letting go.
Stories are meant to teach eternal truths in such a way that we can resonate with them on the deepest level. Christ's story is one of, if not the, most profound of all. I don't know about you, but when I talk about these things my heart fills with excitement and joy at the sheer *truth* of it all. It's incredible.
Well, I'm not a bible scholar, so I can't tell you what his original meaning was. I can only tell you what I gather from it. Why must Paul be talking about a concrete event? In the same passage he talks about the reflection between Christ and Adam. But you don't believe Adam existed. You have no attachment to the particulars in that story. Yet somehow what Paul says is true, isn't it? That what was introduced with Adam is now overcome by Christ. Is it an event that somehow canceled out a prior event? No, because the prior event never happened in real life. It was a myth. But the meaning of it is still strong...and the eternal aspect of the myth, the truth of it...is now reflected and expanded on in the story of Christ.Question for you, what was Paul meaning when he said if Jesus didn't really die and rise again, our faith is in vain? If it's not important as an event that really happened, why do they all place so much importance upon it?
I don't think he's really talking about Christ being risen on a concrete level (though again, it may be concrete as well), but on a personal and existential level that goes much deeper. If Christ is not risen, if there is no rebirth after death, then your faith and your preaching are worthless. You do not fully believe in the meaning you preach. You do not truly have faith. You are still in sin because you are still in fear of death and suffering. And in your mind, those who are asleep (notice he doesn't say dead, interesting) have no hope of awakening, so why preach? I think he's showing how their point of view is reflective of an inner state of despair and fear, when it should be one of hope and life.
Anyway, just my perspective.
*****
From The Alchemist, a conversation between the boy and the alchemist:
"My heart is a traitor...it doesn't want me to go on."
"That makes sense... Naturally it's afraid that, in pursuing your dream, you might lose everything you've won."
"Well, then, why should I listen to my heart?"
"Because you will never again be able to keep it quiet. Even if you pretend not to have heard what it tells you, it will always be there inside you, repeating to you what you're thinking about life and about the world."
"You mean I should listen to my heart, even if it's treasonous?"
"Treason is a blow that comes unexpectedly. If you know your heart well, it will never be able to do that to you. Because you'll know its dreams and wishes, and will know how to deal with them. You will never be able to escape from your heart. So it's better to listen to what it has to say. That way, you'll never have to fear an unanticipated blow."
...
"My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer...."
"Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity."
...
That night, the boy slept deeply, and, when he awoke, his heart began to tell him things that came from the Soul of the World. It said that all people who are happy have God within them. And that happiness could be found in a grain of sand from the desert, as the alchemist had said. Because a grain of sand is a moment of creation, and the universe has taken millions of years to create it. "Everyone on earth has a treasure that awaits him," his heart said. "We, people's hearts, seldom say much about those treasures, because people no longer want to go in search of them. We speak of them only to children. Later, we simply let life proceed, in its own direction, toward its own fate. But, unfortunately, very few follow the path laid out for them--the path to their Personal Legends, and to happiness. Most people see the world as a threatening place, and, because they do, the world turns out, indeed, to be a threatening place.
"So, we, their hearts, speak more and more softly. We never stop speaking out, but we begin to hope that our words won't be heard: we don't want people to suffer because they don't follow their hearts."
Warning: CONTAINS SPOILERS
Last night Ben and I went and saw the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still. I have never seen the original, so I didn't know what to expect, but it had Keanu Reeves in it (as an alien, which requires no emotion, so we figured he might actually do well) and it was about aliens, so we had to see it.
I ended up liking it a *lot* more than I expected to. I just read a brief synopsis of the 1951 version of the movie, and from what I can tell, this is a similar creation, but in a modern and perhaps more profound language.
Plot Summary
The US government becomes aware that there is a large space object heading directly for earth and so gathers together the best scientists to try to help avert the situation. Helen (Jennifer Connely) is an astrobiologist. She studies microbiology, theorizing about other planets. Anyway, as they all brace for impact they notice that nothing happens. No great tragedy. Instead, a bright light slowly decends over New York City, and eventually a globe of swirling light lands in Central Park.
Helen is at the scene, and when the alien walks out of the "ship" she walks towards him. Just as they are about to reach out and shake hands, one of the many military soldiers there shoots the alien. His alarm system, a giant robot that shuts down all electricity in the area, comes to his defense, ready to destroy the military, until the alien whispers something that makes him shut down.
The government is first and foremost concerned with finding out if there is going to be an attack on planet earth, and the fear guides them. It's clear that almost everyone in this film is guided by fear and the need for security. It turns out that the alien, Klaatu, has come representing a leauge of alien civilizations coming to assess the threat of humans to the planet earth, and if necessary, to exterminate them.
One of my favorite scenes is when Klaatu comes to a McDonalds, where he meets with an old Asian man who happens to be an alien who has lived on the planet for 70 years. He says that without question humans are a destructive race, and should be dealth with. But then he refuses to leave the planet. As destructive as we are, there is something about us. Life for a human is hard, he says, but there is another side. He can't explain it, but somehow, he loves them, and cannot leave.
Another part that I really love is when Helen takes Klaatu to a nobel prize winning mathematician's house (played by John Cleese), and Cleese's character asks Klaatu what the turning point for his race was. Klaatu responds that their star was dying, and they had to evolve. Cleese used this to make a point. Yes, we are a destructive race, but it is always at the precipice, the moment of devastation when all seems to be lost...that is when we change. Please, don't take this moment away from us, it is our moment, the moment of truth for our race.
And yet while seeing and hearing these things, those in power continue their actions out of fear, hunting the alien down, trying to destroy the robot that came with him. And every time they do this, things get worse.
My Thoughts
And afterwards I was thinking about how incredible life is, because if you take these things together, every action we make out of fear and the need to protect ourselves makes things worse, but at the same time, when do we change? When things reach the brink of despair.
And so it's almost like salvation is built into the system, even in the darkest of times. If you can relax and trust and love, that's great. But even if you threaten or don't take time to understand and you act out of your reactionary mind...eventually you yourself, by your own actions, will make things so bad that it finally gets through to you.
At the end of the movie, Klaatu gives his life to save the human race, convinced that the good in us is worth saving. And so he stops the device that had already wiped out much of our infrastructure and many of our people, but it comes at a price. The destruction stops, but we are left with no electricity, no power.
And the reaction is brilliant. The people stop. Stop moving, stop struggling. A moment of pure calm decends on everyone. They open their eyes and just look at everything. People in offices open the blinds and let the sun in. To me it looked like they had opened their eyes for the first time. It's a profoundly beautiful moment.
Of course, I suspect that the moment will be short lived and that people will fall back into fear shortly enough, but while it lasts, it's so beautiful.
I think that's what gives me hope beyond anything else. Not that the bad times make you stronger, it's not about that. It's that even *through* the bad times, it's like there's some sort of aim of existence to bring us to the light, by whatever means possible. Every single moment is an opportunity to stop fighting and be still, to open our eyes for the first time. And each moment that we don't take it, we build up towards a tragic moment where we finally can see it.
It doesn't erase the tragedy, but I definitely feel that it gives the tragedy a kind of purpose and that perhaps there may even be, at the heart of existence, something motivated simply by love.
“Hope consists in asserting that there is at the heart of being, beyond all data, beyond all inventories and all calculations, a mysterious principle which is in connivance with me, that cannot but will that which I will, if what I will deserves to be willed and is, in fact, willed by the whole of my being."
- Gabriel Marcel
"Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It's just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all this to happen; room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy. When we think that something is going to bring us pleasure, we don't know what's really going to happen. When we think something is going to give us misery, we don't know. Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all. We try to do what we think is going to help. But we don't know. We never know if we're going to fall flat or sit up tall. When there's a big disappointment, we don't know if that's the end of the story. It may be just the beginning of a great adventure."
Pema Chodron
Seen elsewhere on Vox...had to borrow it. I've been flirting with buying one of Chodron's books for some time now.
Nope, I'm not talking Camus. I'm talking Tarsem.
Last night I went with a friend of mine to see The Fall, a movie done by Tarsem Singh, the maker of The Cell. Now, I wasn't a huge fan of The Cell, beautiful movie but weird as hell, and I wasn't really all that good at analyzing movies at the time, so I didn't get much out of it.
For this movie though, I had high hopes. Why? It has the same sort of surreal and fantastical look to it, but the story is very straightforward and beautiful. The real world half of the story may have been a little predictable, but I forgive that because of how emotional it was. My friend complained of being hit over the head with the message, but I think it really worked.
The movie centers around a little immigrant girl named Alexandria who has fallen and broken her arm and is staying at a hospital. The movie follows her, and everything is seen basically from her perspective. By chance she meets a man at the hospital, Pushing Daisies' Lee Pace, who has also fallen and injured himself. He starts telling her a story about five bandits who are out to kill the evil Governor Odius. What she doesn't know is that he's using the story to manipulate her into helping him.
The problem is that what he wants to do is kill himself. Obviously he doesn't tell her that, but all the adults know he is suicidal. There is a lot of talk of suicide and that's why my friend felt like she was being hit over the head with it. But the reason I think it worked was because we were supposed to be seeing things through Alexandria. And when you are a child dealing with issues way to adult for you to comprehend, no amount of hearing about them is going to make you understand. You're slightly aware of these words and feelings floating around in some space, but it doesn't make sense and you kind of just keep chugging along kind of blindly.
At least, that's how my childhood often felt.
If this had been merely a story of how the light of a child saves the life of a man in despair, it would have been boring. But it's much more complex than that. It's almost more about her than it is about him. I think it was a brilliant movie and was worth going to see. If you don't get this in time to catch it in theaters, make sure you get a hold of it when it comes out on DVD.
Not to mention, the movie was absolutely breathtakingly beautiful, especially the way it wove the real world into the imaginary one with incredible tact and beauty.
Finally, all my videos have been uploaded to youtube, so now you can go through the whole talk in order, so that everything makes sense. :)
One thing I noticed while re-watching this particular clip was the similarity that this process has to the dialectic process of personal transformation, in particular for me: Annie Dillard's account of the three days.
I think I can add yet one more row to the chart I made on her process of personal transformation
Day One: Oneness
Like Freke says, as a baby you are not conscious of yourself as separate from the rest of everything. You probably feel like you *are* the world, but then of course since you're not conscious you can't say anything about it or even experience it.
This corresponds with Day One in Dillard because here you have the kitsch of complete harmony with everything. It's beautiful, but the lack of consciousness makes it one-dimensional and incomplete.
Day Two: Separateness
Then naturally as we learn to live in the separateness, as we lose that magic and become enveloped in our own heads, and that can be extremely lonely and painful. Separateness by itself is hell. Maybe that's why Sartre said that hell is other people? Because the fact that there is an "other" means that you are separate... I doubt he meant it that way but that's an interesting way we could take it.
Obviously this is a very Day Two style event, since Day Two is a not happy day.
Day Three: Both!
Eventually we come to see that even though we are separate, we are also united in oneness. It is a synthesis of the first two phases, which fits the overall structural scheme perfectly. Now we come to see that we are Being/Awareness and Oneness, but we are also individuals living out our separate lives.
At this point it is tempting and a lot of people really want to say that the separateness is bad and that we should live in the Oneness only, but that is yet another form of escapism and an attempt to go *back* to Day One. What we really want to do is let the Oneness inform our separate lives.
Every part of the process is a necessary part. Perhaps that's why Gnostics don't tend to demonize the Fall quite so much as literalist Christians. We need the separateness, we just don't want ONLY the separateness. We've *needed* to make this journey. It's necessary and in some ways good, even though sometimes it hurts like hell. I guess that's where my hope and trust comes from, from the fact that the difficult times are necessary, in a way Hell (as we have described it here) is necessary to help prepare us and open us up to the possibility of the deepest form of hope. And so in pain I know that not only is everything okay on that level of Oneness, but also that this is a part of my journey that is necessary and in the long run could be characterized as good...on some level.
Of course I don't deny in any way the pain of the moment, the possibility of horrible things happening. It's just that for me, it's the trust in the journey that means the most.
Another interesting thing is that, as Freke points out, this happens on all sorts of levels, be it phases within a persons life (as I've always read Dillard), as one huge overall general progression of a person's life, and even as a progression in history (it may even be a repeating process just as in Dillard...how the Day Three slips into a new Day One without noticing it). This just keeps popping up everywhere!
I'm so happy I went!
Came across these today, and I think they apply to what I've currently been going through.
"The ego adopts the viewpoint of matter, and therefore is constantly
trapped by matter—trapped and tortured by the physics of pain. But
pain, too, arises in your consciousness, and you can either be in pain,
or find pain in you, so that you surround pain, are bigger than pain,
transcend pain, as you rest in the vast expanse of pure Emptiness that
you deeply and truly are."
-Ken Wilber, One Taste
"You who feel threatened by this changing world, its twists of fortune and its bitter jests, its brief relationships and all the “gifts” it merely lends to take away again; attend this lesson well. The world provides no safety. It is rooted in attack, and all its “gifts” of seeming safety are illusory deceptions. It attacks, and then attacks again. No peace of mind is possible where danger threatens thus.
Defenses are the costliest of all the prices which the ego would exact. In them lies madness in a form so grim that hope of sanity seems but to be an idle dream, beyond the possible. The sense of threat the world encourages is so much deeper, and so far beyond the frenzy and intensity of which you can conceive, that you have no idea of all the devastation it has wrought…You are its slave. You know not what you do, in fear of it. You do not understand how much you have been made to sacrifice, who feel its iron grip upon your heart. You do not realize what you have done to sabotage the holy peace of God by your defensiveness. For you behold the Son of God as but a victim to attack by fantasies, by dreams, and by illusions he has made; yet helpless in their presence, needful only of defense by still more fantasies, and dreams by which illusions of his safety comfort him."
-ACIM
So my good friend and neighbor Scott has started a new blog called There's Treasure Everywhere. It's a place where multiple contributors post about hints of beauty and spirituality that we find in everyday things like music, movies, books, poetry, etc.
So, today I wrote my first post over there. It's about a children's record I used to listen to when I was a kid, and the new meaning it has for me now as an adult. Check it out.
:)
