A Ramble about Blinking Cursors

I'm sitting here staring at a blinking cursor as it expects me to come up with something to write so it can fulfill its purpose in life. It has no other purpose than to tell me where the letters are going to go, and to tell me where it is I'm going to put the next letters I write. It does not praise me when I write, neither does it condemn me when I don't, it just waits patiently and expectantly. That is its function and it is happy to fulfill it. It does not care if what I write is witty. It does not care if it is passionate, intelligent, inane, or dull. It is there to be the instrument of my creativity, and it is happy to do so. It doesn't come up with anything on its own. It waits for me to do that. It only seeks to be my vessel, never going farther than what I intend, nor resisting my input.

If it should decide to print things which I did not type, then it would be malfunctioning, and I would have to make corrections involving the delete or backspace key. If it decided not to print things which I did type, then it would be malfunctioning, and I would have to find a solution to the problem (generally involving either a reboot, a reinstallation, or at worst a new computer).

In short, the blinking cursor is humble, obedient, takes no thought for what it wants, and waits to act on my slightest whim.

I'm not a blinking cursor. Sometimes I feel like a blank page, with nothing to say, or not knowing what to say. But I'm not a blinking cursor. I usually have very strong opinions about what should be written, or what shouldn't be. I often write what was not intended, and almost as often don't write what was. I don't wait patiently and expectantly. In short, I am malfunctioning and require at the least a reboot on a consistent basis.

It's ironic, if I had to reboot my computer as much as I myself need to be rebooted I would generally either reinstall the software, or replace the computer (depending on the issues involved). But I don't get replaced. I haven't gotten reinstalled. I just keep getting rebooted, and I keep getting worked with as is, malfunction and all.

If anyone could judge me, it would be the blinking cursor in front of me. Yet it makes no judgments. I certainly do. This is part of my malfunction. Instead of allowing what should or should not be written to be decided by the author, I decide for myself what should or should not be written and then I presume to decide it for others as well. This is what was written or not written before, therefore it should be the same every time for every person. I make a poor cursor not permitting the imagination or creativity of the author.

We can learn a lot about following Christ from just considering the blinking cursor in front of us. He was a good blinking cursor. He wanted us to follow His example.

A Ramble about Meditating

My Bishop recently asked me an insightful question, "do you meditate in the presence of God, or do you meditate to be in the presence of God. The first is of the heart, the second is of the self." This has been on my mind ever since reading it.

The truth is that when I began my attempts at meditation, it was to experience the presence of God for myself in a controlled setting. Something I could replicate again and again. Without thinking about it, I was basically conducting experiments on God like a lab rat. There really isn't any wonder as to why it became harder and harder after a while, and why He seemed so distant.

God surrounds and fills me. He is the foundation of all existance, and there isn't anywhere I can go where He isn't present. I know that in my head. But it was my perception of this or lack thereof which was driving my "experimentation." God surrounds me and I experience Him all the time without recognizing Him for who He is. This is a problem of my own perception, not a lack of His presence. It is a lack of my own awareness and mindfulness (or watchfulness as in the Orthodox tradition). It is therefore possible to experience His presence both in the prayer room and driving our van. Both when saying Mass and when doing the dishes. There are some actions which help one to focus on His presence, but they do not control His presence.

I know that He is in everything. The hard part isn't the knowing, it's the realizing.

A Ramble about Dreams

Lately, I've been having dreams that are really hard to come out of. I suppose it's normal for everyone to experience this at one point in time or another. The dream remains the reality for a short period of time after "waking up".

During this period of time, I can remember almost everything which happened in the dream as though it had happened in reality yesterday, but as the waking moment goes on, it gets lost as reality takes over my senses.

One observation I've made is that the "I" which I experience in the dream, is never the same "I" which I experience in reality. His memories are different, his experiences are different, and who he is as a person is often different. His reality is made up of pieces of the same experiences which make up mine, but arranged in a completely different way. I do things in my dreams which I would never do in my waking state. Things which disturb and at times horrify me. But it is "me" doing them. It is not the "me" I and others are most familiar with, it is a different combination of "me", but it is "me" nonetheless. These disturbing things are a different combination of the elements which combine to form "I". In another reality, maybe in another time and place, the "I" I am most familiar with would be the one in a particular dream, and the "I" I am now would be the discrepancy.

This makes me think about the truth that the "I" which I know and the "I" which I dream are only composites of my experiences arranged in different ways. Somehow, I am self-aware in both states, and I am capable of decision making in both states even though the factors I use to make those decisions are composited differently. Even though the other "I" may be a stranger as far as experiences yet I know that I am one and the same with him.

This leads me to the conclusion that whether or not I maintain the same experiences and decisions there is some kind of a "mind" which maintains my self-awareness as distinct from all others independent of the experiences and memories, or the pieces thereof, which composite the person who "I" am that I am most familiar with. In reality, I recognize that I am married and have children, and I know who that person is to whom I am married. When I am dreaming, I do not always remember this fact, or if I do, the person to whom I am married can change, yet I perceive no discrepancy, or error in the change. When I wake, I often feel guilty about this, even though there was nothing abnormal perceived in the dream.

I have spoken before of the "I and Thou" distinction between God and myself (or any other created being for that matter) and how eventually this is what we will face without the memories and experiences and possessions with which we identify ourselves. In the dream, this distinction is preserved, even if the "I" is totally different. It is therefore this "mind" which must be converted to the acceptance and recognition of God, apart from everything else with which I identify myself.

I will explore the ramifications of this truth at a later time...

A Ramble about the Humility of God

As I have struggled through meditation, I had found it harder and harder to reach the point of awareness of His presence. I fought through, but each time it became harder, and then for several weeks, it seemed completely fruitless. I struggled, I cried out internally, and nothing.

I felt lost and confused. Why had He slipped through my fingers when I reached out to grasp Him? Didn't He want me coming closer to Him? Where was He? I knew He surrounded me, I knew that He was in everything and everywhere and that there was nowhere I could go where He was not. So why did I feel so cut off?

He told me.

I sought control of Him. I sought the awareness of His presence in order to change myself into something "better". I sought union with Him to advance my own twisted reason and to propitiate my fear of being less than by "being better than" spiritually. He refused to be a part of my self-seeking and self-advancement. It was as simple as that.

I have a deep seated fear that everyone else is better than I am in some way, and my psyche seems to react by trying to, consciously or unconsciously, be better than everyone else. I seek to control and manipulate everything around me to achieve the acquisition of my own desires or illusions. Whether it be the desire for a certain object such as a DVD or book, or the illusion of seeing myself as a good or spiritual person. I sought to run from what I am, and to become something I am not. Instead of accepting myself as myself, warts and all, I was rejecting myself in favor of a pleasant delusion. Instead of embracing the cross, I was running from it yelling "I embrace you!"

When I realized this, I sat in silence. And then I became aware of His presence. It was not imposing. He was not overwhelming. He was quiet. He was soft, and gentle. He was concerned, and it felt as when a friend of mine was giving me a hug from behind. As I dwelt on this I became aware of the stark contrast between Him and myself and the disdain which this controlling part of myself felt for His "softness". This part of me was hard, proud, dominating, and the total antithesis of Him. It honestly didn't know what to do with Him. God in this manner did not force Himself on me, but waited for me to sit still. He did not strike me as awe-inspiring, but "lowly".

God felt no need to prove or show His dominance to me. Almighty God was as soft and gentle as, well... a small animal. I don't know why, but that is the term which comes to mind. I wanted the awareness of the presence of God, and instead of awe-inspiring power, I got soft and gentle like someone's toothless old great-grandfather.

As I said above, this hard controlling part of me didn't know what to do with it. It felt, well... pathetic actually, and totally uncontrolling, even though I knew He had full control of everything. And then my thoughts drifted onto His humility. It's not an aspect of God which we often think about or preach on.

He surrounds us constantly, yet most of the time makes no visible effort to remind us of that fact. We often ignore Him far more than anyone else and talk about Him as if He weren't in the room with us. Even we who profess not only belief and faith in Him, but also love, often go whole days not even noticing Him or acting as if He were present. He doesn't respond in anger. He doesn't seek to prove how much better than we are He is. He lets us go, and takes no offense. He who has ultimate control chooses not to wield it in that way. And here I who have no real control over anything am seeking to control Him for my own selfish means.

I suppose that the real first step in a relationship is to really notice the other person, instead of going throughout the day pretending that they don't exist except for your own selfish goals. It's to really see them for who they are, and not for what you can get out of them.

Unlike myself, God is totally devoid of pride and selfish ambition. When I became aware of His presence in this way, I realized how truly ridiculous my own hardness was, and how maligning it was especially to Him.

A Ramble about Self-Acceptance

I'm not who I want to be. I'm not who I think I should be. I'm not who I think others want me to be. I'm not who I think others think I should be. As I was meditating today, and saying a Private Mass which is my daily practice, I struggled and searched for why I felt, and have been feeling so cut off lately. Why haven't I been able to experience the Being of God, His love and joy, when He surrounds and fills me and is never apart from me?

I have a real issue with needing the approval or recognition of others. It's funny, because I never really thought I cared about what others thought, but the truth is that what I perceive as others' perceptions about me colors how I perceive myself. As a result, I also have an issue with vanity. Unconsciously I think "Oh look at me, see now who I am and what I can do. Don't you approve of me now?" And try as I might against it consciously, I seek higher or more prestigious positions; I stress out about how much money I make and how I am presented to others. In other words, I struggle because I identify myself with my perception of others' perceptions, whether or not my perception is accurate.

As I meditate, a lot of extraneous thoughts come into my mind. My first thought is to reject them. For instance, as I attempted to let go, a scene from the recent Star Trek movie flashed through my mind. It was innocent, and totally benign, but I immediately condemned myself for it happening. I think my unconscious thought was something like, "no, I must reject all of this waste and condemn it."

Now here's the issue, what constitutes all of my identity is effectively that waste. Not that I only and totally identify myself with Star Trek, but that it is a part of a larger whole of memories and experiences, preferences, dislikes, hopes, fears, etc, all of which in themselves are quite transient and will eventually be destroyed when this physical being dies, but in themselves for the moment are a mixture of moral, immoral, and amoral. Now my rejection of what I see as immoral or waste within me is based on the erroneous idea that the good will be preserved and the bad will be destroyed when in fact it will all be destroyed upon physical death, and the only thing remaining will be the distinction between I and God, and His all-consuming love.

Now here's the answer to my question, "why do I feel so cut off from God when He surrounds me?" Because I am projecting my perception of myself onto what I perceive He thinks of me. It seems like this happens on a subconscious level, because with my conscious mind I acknowledge that God loves me, and I Him and I seek that love, but I allow the darkness which comes from judging myself to obscure my perception of Him.

With God, I have been joined to Jesus Christ in His death and resurrection. This is a fact. All the "waste" has already died, and the wages of sin, being death, are in fact satisfied. The only thing remaining to go is the physical body. He therefore passes no judgment on it because it has already been judged on the cross. That which has died has been freed from sin. He neither indulges it, nor condemns it, but accepts it and lets it die peacefully.

This is why I have felt so cut off. I have not accepted my self without judgment, nor have I let it die peacefully, and I have allowed this lack of acceptance, this non-zero attitude (I don't know why but the idea comes into my head that +1 is indulgence and -1 is condemnation), to be projected onto God, onto others, and to erupt into attempts to "prove" how worthy I am, or how spiritual, or how good, or even how I might be better than the other person being secretly fearful that I am worse.

Perhaps this is why sin leads to hell, always. And hell doesn't have to be after we die, it is a fact of the living as well as the dead. Sin is a non-zero attitude towards ourselves and it projects our perceptions of ourselves onto everyone else, including and especially God, and this perception is fear whether we know it or not. All the while, God surrounds us with His Being of love. Our ability to recognize that is dependent on our ability to let go of that fear, and stop projecting our perceptions onto Him.

St. Paul said in Romans 8:1 - "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit." I think, quite possibly that this is part of what he meant. Not that God condemns the person in actuality but that we project our own subconscious self-condemnation onto Him, whereas the person who lets the self die peacefully with Christ, neither indulging nor condemning, realizes the ever-present and all-consuming love of God and his perception isn't clouded by the darkness of self-judgment.

The Love of God

God's love is who He is. When we interact with God, we interact with His love. When we experience the bliss of the Eternal Life, or the fires of Gehenna; whether we are comforted in our sorrow, rebuked in our errors, or purged through fire, we are encountering the love of God. The only thing which changes throughout all of these experiences, is ourselves and how we perceive Him and encounter His love. This all penetrating, all-consuming love surrounds us and fills and penetrates us, because He surrounds us fills and penetrates us. God has no other mode of operation. He is love.

Why then can we experience Hell? Because of His love. The Fires of Gehenna are what we experience when we all we encounter is this all consuming devastating love and instead turn towards physical and transient cravings and desires which leave one continuously craving for more. The fires of Gehenna are what we experience when we refuse to let go of our fears and delusions of control and just accept His all consuming love on His terms. His all-consuming devastating love for us is also an all-consuming devastating hatred for the sin malfunction which afflicts every one of us, in the same way that the parent of a child with a disorder loves that child fiercely while at the same time curses and fiercely hates the child's affliction.

God does not move, we do. His love does not move, it is always there because He is always there. Why then do we not always feel it? The answer is that we do, but do not always understand what we are feeling, or we ignore it for the impermanent and relatively meaningless things our senses are telling us. We don't slow down long enough to pay attention to what is right in front of us.

The Love of God feels harsh at times, just like my love for my children feels harsh to them when they disobey. I hate their disobedience because I love them fiercely and I have a particular vision of the kind of people they can be if not for their disobedience. I want them to always experience my love in a positive way, but that depends on their perception, and I know that my love can't waver even if they have a misperception of it.

The love of God is purifying, and it can be painful in its purification as it burns away everything we still grasp for and crave. This is why a purgatory and a hell often feel the same, the difference between them is our response to this devastating and terrible Love. The difference between a purging and a damnation is literally whether we are willing to surrender to the Love of God and let go of all else.

He rages because He is love. He burns away all that we desire because He is love. He hates because He is love. He is still, unmoving, uncompromising, and unwavering because He is love. He comforts, encourages, pushes us onwards, and is unrelenting because He is love.

The love of God is devastating, terrible, and terrifying in its power, scope, and absoluteness. In the face of such love, we can either surrender and be enraptured and consumed by it, or be destroyed with all else we cling to.

Yet Another Ramble

As I've been meditating, I've noticed that, while the practice itself is relatively simple, understanding and actually fighting my way through it each day is not. Truth is, I come away with feeling a little fried by the end of it. It however hasn't been fruitless, just difficult. This is something I gleaned from it recently;

We will either die now, or we will die later. Either we suffer the loss of our selves now, or we will suffer it later.

Our intelligence, our experiences, our fears, our desires and appetites, our wealth and possessions, our family and friends -- when we die we lose all of these things, because when the physical brain dies, so dies everything housed within it, and all that remains is the sense of distinction, the "I and you," between myself and God and all other people. Some of this can be seen with Alzheimer's patients, for example.

This will happen whether we choose to cooperate or not. The Path of Jesus Christ is the choice to cooperate with the release of these things now, in this life, in surrender and abandonment to God.

The pain of death comes with the loss of everything we are attached to. In death, these things are consumed before our eyes, and we are drawn back into the love and life of God, retaining the distinction between He and us, but losing all else.

For the worldly person, this process is terrifying. Because of his attachments, as he is drawn into union with God, he goes into Eternal Misery because he refuses to let go. He doesn't want to be united with God, he wants to be an individual ego, and burns with craving for things he can no longer experience. The love of God becomes an eternal torment for that person, as he refuses to accept it.

For the Godly person, this process is welcome, and rest, and returning home as he accepts and enjoys the love and being of God.

Living the Eternal Life is seeking this release in the here and now by abandoning attachments to one's ego, possessions, and relationships -- becoming one with Christ in His death -- and as the obstacles to the love of God and union with Him are removed, we realize and experience that we are surrounded and filled with Him, wrapped and full of His love. And as this occurs, then His love pours out and through us.

No one comes to the Father without first voluntarily making the Cross of Jesus Christ his or her own. No one. No one experiences the life of Jesus Christ, without first experiencing His death within themselves; and as His death becomes more and more manifest within us, so then His life becomes more and more manifest within us.

Ultimately, we will die, one way or the other. This is the reality of human existence. We can choose to begin the process of letting go of everything now, and welcoming the full experience of God when it comes; or we can choose to lie to ourselves, hang on to everything we can, and then have it all ripped away in eternal misery. It's our choice.