We won’t be prepared to die until we have truly lived. For some paradoxical reason, people who have experienced life intensely and fully are the ones who are most able to let go of it. They seem to die with the same passion with which they lived. Those who most fear death are those who have not yet begun to live. Those who have lived a full life have learned already how to include death; death is not a stranger.
People with unlived lives unconsciously know that true insight and vitality have somehow eluded them, leaving them without a center or even a sense of why they were ever born. Their real self—soul—has not been awakened and so they lack a deep sense of themselves, or any eternal purpose. Having not yet begun to live, they can’t imagine dying. It is still foreign territory, a destination preceded by no journey toward it. Anxiety haunts their nights and days, searching in outer places for what they can only find within.
Consciousness is the subtle and all-embracing mystery within and between Everything. It is like the air we breathe, take for granted, and do not appreciate. Consciousness is not the seeing but that which sees me seeing. You must step back from your compulsiveness, and your attachment to yourself, to be truly conscious. Consciousness cannot be “just me” because it can watch “me” from a distance...(not) self-absorbed and self-critical...but... just watch yourself objectively, calmly, and compassionately. You will be able to do this from your new viewing platform and perspective as a grounded child of God. From this most positive and dignified position you can let go of and even easily “admit your wrongs.” God forever sees and loves Christ in you; it is only we who doubt our divine identity as children of God.
Don’t judge, just look can be your motto—and now with the very eyes of God.
Sin is to avoid this path of intimacy and communion by any guise whatsoever, even celibacy or abstinence. Evil is to deny anyone, including ourselves, the possibility of this path by making their or our sexuality inferior, in any sense enslaved or controlled, or mere entertainment. If humans cannot enjoy the delighting and delightful face of at least one other, how will they ever seek or surrender to the seductive and loving face of God? They will not even know how. Sexuality and spirituality really are two sides of the same coin: one is body and the other is Spirit.
Is sin to avoid the path of intimacy and communion? yes , it possibly is. Avoiding both communion and intimacy with the Other.
Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
| As the summer is drawing to a close, a new season dawns. For some it will have a hallmark of newness: first day at school, freshers’ week, new class, new rota. New places to go, new fears to conquer and new opportunities to look out for.
You know what? So is everybody. That's how time works.”
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference
Even when the route ahead is seemingly familiar, the time can still be opportune. When Joshua went round the walls of the city for the seventh day for the seventh time, he was listening out for a new sound. And that attentiveness made the ‘same old’ trajectory new. For, the circling was set in the context of a promise. The city would be devoted to God.
|
|
|
