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When I shut my eyes, I don’t recede into myself, into my depths. I don’t find a place of pure thoughts or feelings. But I try. Maybe I should try harder. All I experience is a heightened awareness of my physical surroundings; of my muscles, of the sounds my roommate makes as she moves around in the space connecting our bedrooms, of my eyes twitching to stay closed.
I want to reflect on trials. They come in by weeks it seems like. That is a manageable length of a problem. Some people’s trials come in daily, others come in yearly shifts. They are not what I would consider to be external trials, though that’s the only way I have been able to deal with them so far.
I would like to learn how to focus my thoughts on one thing. I suppose this is what meditation is? That sounds so Zen…I don’t like it. But then again I didn’t like the name Yahweh before I found out its layered significance. And I don’t mean meditation, Buddhist style – as in focusing on a word, like “Ohm” until I am blue in the face and have voided my mind of all thought. No, not like that.
I mean on a certain idea, on a certain trial. To be able to slowly drift through the ins and outs of it, thoughtfully, and to come to an end, with peace and assurance. That’s what I mean. Discursively or not, though the use of words and images would be helpful at first.
Not to knock the focused meditation of a word, but perhaps that seemingly simple level of meditation isn’t so simple, that it should come later, once the overall meanings on the focused subject are understood.
Metaphors, too, may be useful for this task. As in the visualization of something in place of the trial at hand. St. Teresa of Avila, in her early days, visualized the soul as a garden, needing water and nourishment to survive – and in her later days, as a series of mansions within a castle, necessary to pass through to become closer to God. A wise woman. I wonder which mansion I am in right now? Probably the first of many.
There is little resolve to be found in disguises. They leave us to either find faith in face-value, or interpret the matter at our own discretion, which undoubtedly leaves us with a false sense of reality a great deal of the time.
Let us sit in an isolated oasis, with our faces drawn like attracted magnets, in an illusion of caring exchange. But make sure your mask is secured tight, we can't be having any meaningful dialogue, now can we? Of course not. Would you like that? Of course not. Not really anyway.
If we were bare-faced, I would like to ask you why I am here with you now? What role do I play in your world? What part have you given me to act for you? And I would ask away, first with hesitation, then with assurance. It is too painful to talk in scripts. It reminds me of watching a person who is slowly dying, at the cost of their own hand.
Wait! Let me brew another pot. It let's me believe I'm more aware - and therefore I am. Awake! Thankyou caffeine. I am now awake enough for hope to fix this matter like a handyman with a nasty, but achievable challenge in front of him. It just takes a bit of persistence.
But don't get me wrong. You are not simply the wrapping of a prize to be won - quite the opposite. You are a living, complex being with spirit and body united to serve a great purpose. Do you see it too? And if so, do you see the requirement of your concern for the truth of it all?
For now, let me sit here with you, at least solely unmasked, and therefore with no constructed defense of my own. I pray it will be an act of love, that your face will burn and itch from its confines. This is my call to never give up and provide hope with an outlet to prevail. I must never forget it my friend - and I have a heavy feeling that your existence partially rests on it. Let's light a match in our oasis, so that one day, we may have light enough to see. I'll go first.
Is it the Holy Spirit which comes to me tonight?
Does it come to tell me that is won’t give up on me when I feel as though I have given up on myself?
It is as if I am suddenly aware that I have been given a gift and that to turn my back on it now, would be worse than before – when I didn’t know I had it.
First, as I wrote the definition of “monasticism” on a note card, it is as if my mind opened – and in such a way that it is ready to learn. But it is not of my own doing. I couldn’t have done this magnificent thing to myself. It was as if someone was whispering in my ear “Learn. Understand. I am still here.” It left me in a state of distress -but the good kind - the type that makes you reach out.
Second, as I read the words from Acts 2:2 a funny thing happened. The words read: “And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.” But before I processed the sentence, a cold breeze flew over me, making all the hair on my arms stand up. As I finished the sentence a feeling of great humility and smallness arrived inside of me.
Am I crazy to see an overwhelming connection here? No. Sometimes, things don’t happen randomly, and instead, happen with great purpose.
It is a funny thing, isn’t it? It is these small things that remind me of how little I am and how fantastic a blessing it is to believe.
It is appropriate to know in some ways and believe in others.
These are the things that cause me to believe. There are no words to convince anyone of it. I only have this great upwelling that bestows on me a duty to explain and write it.
Glory God. It is these blessings you give me which scare me the most. I do not care to fail or offend. Is it simply a choice put in front of me to fail and offend, or to succeed and bring honor to your name?
It seems this simple. Why is it so hard? Why do I, and many others, continuously fail? Selfishness? Greed? I am but nothing, hoping to achieve something.
I ask nothing more than the courage and strength to do as you wish.
Amen.
It seems that I am digitally engraving my words once again upon this fine screen.
I am resting on the computer tonight, because I am afraid my handwritten wonderings won’t do speedy justice to their importance.
There are times when we find ourselves in the midst of personal growth.
If not growing, we are either standing complacent and confused or inching backward to see if we missed anything. O’ how we mistrust ourselves!
I will briefly explain, in case any other soul may read my thoughts and find great contrast in them, between right now and many months past, that my life, by no grace of my own, has sprung into a wild, passionate, flailing dance for truth and life.
Tonight and many other nights, I am blessed and sorrowful, all at once, by the movement of recent memories in my head – back and forth.
What to say of these dreamlike visions?
I ask myself very seriously, whether they be gifts, my feeble imagination, or temptations cloaked in good intention.
Let me describe the memories and arising questions that come into my mind tonight:
First, I think of Jeff. Does anyone remember Jeff?
He came into the picture a long while ago, perhaps 4 years. He left the picture that is my life no less than 3 years ago. We giggled and made small talk together – shared a few special moments, although never so much in words. We exchanged texts that said things like “I wish you were here so bad.” We made mistakes, or at least ones that I find brutal. He sent roses and I shut him out forever. How loving. I seem to have wore a blindfold from around the ages of 14 to 20 that made prevalent the darkness so much that I thought it was the sun. I periodically battle with myself, deciding whether or not to send him a token of my thoughts, expressing my sincere apologies if I had in any way inflicted him pain and explaining my naiveté of spirit – like that of a baby unborn. I assume he would not even know I had such trials inside of me at the time of knowing each other and undoubtedly, he would not expect it now.
I recall recalling all of this to my best friend at the time, who was so good and kind to me – like the comfort of an adjacent puzzle piece pressing into my cloudy dreams.
He was kind then. Gentle. Strong in mind and hopeful in heart. I failed him in so many ways that I regret having to even mention them now, after so much time has passed. But I was selfish and crude. Unseeking and lost in the depths of the forest. I don’t know for sure, but I think that the love he had for me then was real.
I will never know now, for he is far far away in body and spirit. God, strengthen his soul as you find pleasing.
Amen.
As I stare at my name, favorably placed before the title "Lady" because of the way alliteration rolls off your tongue, I am a little unsure.
As to be expected. Becoming a woman, or anything that seems as if it should be so far in the future, isn't really that distant. It is actually rather likely that it will occur. Inevitable, so be it.
But what about me says Lady? Or better yet, as I sculpt myself into one, what do I want about me to scream lady?
And does it even matter what other people think when they think about me, and what makes me a lady, if anything at all? To an extent.
Plato would say, to the extent that spirit rules my soul. As opposed to appetite or reason. Your spirit is what makes you care about how others view you.
To me, at the phase of life in which I am sitting, the way I value my reputation outweighs both my appetites and my reason. And my reason cannot rule until it outweighs my spirit and appetites.
Somehow, I've allowed my mindful thoughts to rush into Plato. Damn that man and his philandering. But bless him too.
Awwwwwe the curse of a woman. What do we really want? And why can't a man figure it out?
Well he couldn't possibly know before we know ourselves, now can he? Of course not. But we want everything! I'm sure that is understandable.
Kidding, of course. What a surprising outburst the simple titling of my thoughts has exposed. All I really wanted, as fulfilled, was something to place them on.
This screen works magnificently. Even better than paper, quicker and lighter in the hands, as well as equally sincere. Although the lack of handwritten words seems insincere.
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