Crazy, crazy week, so I've missed the last three posts! Not that anyone minds, since these are my Irimesque musings, but I did tell MYSELF I'd blog each lesson, so no Irim biscuit - though I've ordered dinner :-).
Thanks to ACIM, 7, 8 & 9 make a natural trinity: "I see only the past," "My mind is occupied with past thoughts," and "I see nothing as it is now."
Again, they were only to be practised four times a day for a minute or so each time, but I found them drifting through my mind at various times during the days, so I used them. I found something interesting - they kicked up a sense of something...sitting in my solar plexus. Not just the sticky sensation that I've talked about earlier, but a rock. A heavy jagged rock that just filled the space and sat there, made me feel ill. I did it with people; I did it with objects; I knew it for truth. I realised how rarely I saw anything on my walk in to work, as my head was turning things over; I'd be at work, having missed people I knew, the beauty of the trees, kids saying things to their parents that would make me cry with laughter.
Wednesday, I practised "I see nothing as it is" with the sanctuary at solemn mass - and realised it was true in the most startling of ways as the procession moved out of the sacristy. When I saw the celebrant, I thought, 'Makes sense, as it would be a Provost's feast,' only to realise, with a start, that I wasn't looking at the current provost. I wasn't seeing him as he was, any more than I saw anyone else, except for those I didn't know, as they are now.
And that's how it is for all of us, isn't it? Those we know, those we claim the greatest intimacy with, are the ones we assume we truly see - when really, we don't see them at all. They're the ones we're most likely to use as commodities - to stuff our wounds; to contain our emotions; the ones we assume we know, and so we don't look any further; the dog we kick when we're having a bad day.
With those we claim to love and treasure the most, we do not see them as they are now.
They deserve that from us - the wondrous curiosity; the joyful exploration; the rigorous honesty; all of who we are - light and shadow; sunshine and thunderstorm; joy and sorrow.
And yet, we give them the least of ourselves - either our best or our worst, but not our truth, not our complexity, not our nuance. We do not give them ourselves as we are now, because we refuse to see them as they are now.
It's time to give ourselves - and those whose lives we touch - a present.
1 comment:
Argh, that rock in the solar plexus... I have one there and in my throat as well, just where you feel a "lump in your throat" when you're going to cry. I'm looking up this course in miracles thing as I type this. Hey Irim. Sorry to keep disappearing and coming back like this. I do it to my IRL friends too. You'd probably get really annoyed with me if I lived close by.
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