There is a note of irony re this “awakening” business that I’m discoursing about. When you have awakened, all you get is the knowledge that, technically, you never have been awake and never will be! All you get is the knowledge…and experience…of the darkness in which you live. You will never be able to say anything but that you “see through a glass darkly” and if you have any honesty you will come to realize that your glass is a lot “darklier” than you could ever imagine!
Oh yes, I believe that “Light has come into the world” but we can only catch a faint glimmer of this Light before it is immediately beset by our ego needs which the Apostle Paul called “the flesh.” This merely means that there is always that tendency to interpret things…and certainly spiritual things…in a self-serving manner and a great resistance to acknowledging this. Of course, we see this so readily with that vast population known as “them” but it rarely dawns on us that we are guilty of the same. Since I found the temerity to acknowledge this, I have frequent “Rick Perry moments” when I have to say “Oops!” as I realize that once again I am just full of myself with some of my blather and that I am using my “enlightened” discourse to merely avoid reality.
Now, when this happens I try to not castigate myself and I certainly am not trying to say that I am a bad human being. I am not. I’m just a “human being” and it is human nature to take ourselves too seriously and not accept our shallowness and ego-centricity. And it is just so very “ok” to be “guilty” of being a human but it is important to acknowledge it! This helps me to snicker less when others are caught being guilty of the same.
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Oh yes, I believe that “Light has come into the world” but we can only catch a faint glimmer of this Light before it is immediately beset by our ego needs which the Apostle Paul called “the flesh.” This merely means that there is always that tendency to interpret things…and certainly spiritual things…in a self-serving manner and a great resistance to acknowledging this. Of course, we see this so readily with that vast population known as “them” but it rarely dawns on us that we are guilty of the same. Since I found the temerity to acknowledge this, I have frequent “Rick Perry moments” when I have to say “Oops!” as I realize that once again I am just full of myself with some of my blather and that I am using my “enlightened” discourse to merely avoid reality.
Now, when this happens I try to not castigate myself and I certainly am not trying to say that I am a bad human being. I am not. I’m just a “human being” and it is human nature to take ourselves too seriously and not accept our shallowness and ego-centricity. And it is just so very “ok” to be “guilty” of being a human but it is important to acknowledge it! This helps me to snicker less when others are caught being guilty of the same.

There is part of me that wants to be more ‘awake’ than anyone else but I know I’m not (drat it all). Everyday I am reminded that I see through a glass darkly and yet in the midst of it, I am the most content I have ever been. I am just ‘me’ and this is OK. Nothing fantastic. Nothing
wonderful. Just learning to rest in the Ground of Being.
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Oh yes, I can so relate…”just me” and at times I even deign to take delight in it….without any guilt! “A condition of complete simplicity costing not less than everything.” TS Eliot Thanks.
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An after thought…though I concede you are “more awake” than me, I insist that my “phylactery” is “broader” than yours!!!!!
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Ditto re A-M above. Awakening is sort of a reality check. And G. It is hard. Joy and what joy is in my being is …. I don’t know or can’t express . It’s our dogs that make me laugh. The garden and the incredible wildlife …
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Oh yes…dogs, gardens, and wildlife. It helped me just to read this thought. These things often comfort me and remind me to “chill out” from all of this “God stuff” which can so easily be only “god” stuff! Thanks.
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Oh, so glad that you have dogs, garden, and wild life in your life. I think you have inspired my post for later today—a Wendell Berry poem. Thanks so much.
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