When a person is assessing their life it quickly becomes a sorting of microcosms much like trying to see the horizon through tangled brush, scraggly trees and large boulders. It takes some doing to see our past objectively as we carry so much detritus of little things that deeply affected us. Rather like that pile of dust you missed in the corner of the living room. We know of our mistakes but what we need to see is the overall assemblage of adulthood from being a child, to young adult, to man or womanhood. It is time, if we are sorting, to crawl up on one of the aforementioned boulders to get a clear look at that horizon in the distance. To see the path we’ve been traveling on so as to better reconcile our progress. To assess without prejudice takes a clear, unobstructed view.
For the sake of this analogy, consider that the boulder we need to climb has few crevices for hand or footholds. This is the initial search to forget about the brush and concentrate on mounting the sides of this boulder which, for our purposes, is our memory. A memory shaded or needing pieces to be put back into place to find the whole of what we think we were. Usually, and with care, those pieces can be put back where they belong even if they look differently than we thought they would appear. This is finding truth in memory. The shining of a very bright light on ourselves without the prejudicial layering we have applied to make ourselves feel better for whatever reason. The liar, to be a good liar, must first learn to lie to themselves.
Is this work worth the toil? Immensely worth it and I will tell you why. We are not saints nor are we perfect. This is the first admission and even saints made horrible mistakes because they were human and humans are imperfect. Recognizing this is the first step. We are not perfect and we are capable of performing any number of horrible actions whether those actions are against ourselves or others, physical or emotional, mental or financial. Wrong is wrong, and it is the recognition of our wrongness that starts us back on the path to grace. Grace, that state of mind in which we are whole again.
In essence, we spend our lives tearing ourselves into ever smaller pieces through ego or feelings of inferiority or superiority. It is those pieces which leave us vulnerable to attack from places we cannot see. We feel it though. Oh yes, we feel it and many deny those feelings or blame others for those feelings. We are responsible for our own minds and the mind needs to be bathed in fresh, clean water. The water from our souls, the purest form of clarity of thought.
Prayer, done properly, is immensely powerful in every case in which we find ourselves at odds with ourselves. We first must fight ourselves in order to help others.
Please forgive me if I go too long on these but as one who has, let’s just say, been in a position to remove life from this Earth, I know only that these things worked for me. I do not, in any way, consider myself special but reconciliation with my “self ,” after combat, took many years. It was prayer that allowed me to live through a good part of this journey.
It is prayer that I preach to you for we need to commune with God, His Son and, then, ourselves. I call this the “tripod effect” for the healing of the soul.
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