Wednesday, March 23, 2011

What You Said - Reprise



I cringe a little posting this one. It's probably a pun. In my defense, I am convinced that God has a sense of humor, an infinite one to be sure...but He seems to have favorites, puns, pratfalls, practical jokes. He puts thieves in service as messengers, a position which they do really well. He seems to like His humor painted in primary colors with broad strokes. His subtlety lies elsewhere, perhaps in His relation to forgiveness and in His truth telling.

So if you have certain sorts of holes in your moral compass, there is hope for you yet.

One piece of this, over and over in my experience, many of us survive the most incredible circumstances. We so frequently do not deserve any kind of break like that if you look at us through our own human eyes. Yet we often thrive anyway and have amazing "war" stories, sometimes some harrowing war stories for real, the sort you would not relate in public if you are not certain of your audience. Or maybe not even then. But God has an infinite sense of humor as well as infinite justice and infinite mercy, infinitely focussed at each and every point in the cosmos.

I am very happy to tell you I have not received what I deserve. :)

What You Said

You told me so much
Last weekend when I came home.
It's hard to keep it
All in view, but one
Thing you said, at least I think
You said this to me,

"Go and sign no more."

I'm not sure I know what you
Mean by saying that.

January 11, 2009 9:40 AM

This first posted June 4, 2009
Posted by at

6 comments:

  1. erinMarch 24, 2011 at 4:33 AM

    I was very hooked on the word deserve as I could clearly see that I was not receiving what I deserved. Robert has me leaving that word on the carpet. I've trusted him that way. It is rather liberating. I didn't realize what shackles that single word had, what allowance it had into my life. It was a strange and surprising thing for me.

    If I am to be completely truthful though, I suppose I've reserved just a small portion of it, kept it in my breast pocket. I don't give it too much mind directly but it does keep me humble. I just assume we all have breast pockets with a bit of deserve in them as it is a consequence of living. None of us lives without harming others.

    Go and sign no more. I'm not sure what that means either.:)

    xo
    erin

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  2. christopherMarch 24, 2011 at 12:53 PM

    Maybe I just didn't hear it right...

    I have a feeling that we humans understand forgiveness better than justice. However, the (in my opinion) twisted sense of justice we have is easier for us to practice than the truer sense of forgiveness that we also have.

    We yearn for forgiveness but we enact strange justice.

    That we cannot live without hurting others is the more general extension of the specific awareness that we cannot live without killing and eating other sentient beings.

    I have to pretend I don't know all this, or at least act as if I am pretending such a thing. Otherwise life goes too dark for me.

    ReplyDelete
  3. christopherMarch 24, 2011 at 12:55 PM

    Actually that's not completely correct. I have many periods where I just stop thinking about such things. I don't dare actually try to escape this knowledge.

    ReplyDelete
  4. erinMarch 26, 2011 at 4:30 AM

    and so you sit beyond these truths, these hard ideas. huh. i think i do in many cases too.

    what a strange world, eh, christopher?

    xo
    erin

    ReplyDelete
  5. christopherMarch 27, 2011 at 10:45 AM

    I am not that sure, Erin, that I am sitting beyond these truths since they are fundamental to my existence on the planet. I sit within them yet absent from them as well. This I think is a natural blankness designed to allow a kind of freedom. It is not wise to depend on it. This natural state is one facet of the illusory nature of my life, I think.

    All spiritual masters concur that for real progress to occur, the illusion must be rendered transparent so that the world may be clarified. It is only in the clarified world that the meanings that make a difference may be found.

    ReplyDelete
  6. christopherMarch 27, 2011 at 10:50 AM

    I must of course add that my small heart must grow much bigger if I am to live with the world as it is. That I turn black cannot be permitted if I am to proceed. I must grow up. This maturation probably must be public in some way, must actually show, and it is doubtful that I can have that without the process being public as well. Growing up in public is a source of humility. :)

    ReplyDelete

The chicken crossed the road. That's poultry in motion.

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