Meditations #7

7.

You are in trouble again, aren’t you? Enemies at the gate, life teetering on the brink. You thought you’d be further along by now. Thought the battle would be over. You imagined when you set out on this path that you’d be spared the difficulty, didn’t you, loved one? Or that at least it would last just a short time, and then be over.

I am sorry to tell you–that was vanity.
All vanity.

These words will taste bitter in your mouth but they are good medicine: you are not nearly that special. No one is. Some of life in this world is sheer conflict. (Some, I say; not all.) And you are in it–life, that is; this world, with all its hope and heartache, all its possibility and sheer terror.

You didn’t ask for it, but you are in it. (That is what makes it grace–we will come to this in time.) So you must know: everything will happen to you. Everything. You will be spared nothing. All things and all manner of things–even difficult things–shall be yours. Life is the inheritance of the living, and you are among the living, and these too are part of it.

Oh, I know this goes down hard. But the sooner you swallow the better, for every happening is a teacher, sent by the Teacher to make you wise. And difficulty is one of his best, an altogether excellent teacher, given to grow you, to ripen you in the Righteousness–but not without your consent.

So, I ask: Do you consent?

If so, here is your first task: stop pointing the finger, abandon blame. It never served you anyway. See how it mired you in heavy cords of judgment, entangled you in a web of inner contradiction and chaos. See how it never–never once–set you free; how it darkened your mind and closed you down and cut you off from the Life.

He who would enter the kingdom must pass through the eye of the needle and thus sell even these–the spurious riches of long-cherished judgments.

You have come, beloved, to the Righteous One for refuge, to the Holy One for help–but has no one told you the stakes? He is a shade, yes–the very best, a living shelter from the heat, comfort in adversity. But for your self-righteousness he is and can be no shelter, no shade for vanity.

No, rather, in his mercy, he will root it out to destroy it, destroying that which is destroying you (did you not know, did no one tell you, that your desire for the destruction of your enemies is destroying you, that your judgments are judging you?), crippling the confusion you’ve concocted between conviction and comeuppance.

All of this must die if you would be free. And you can be free. You will be free.

Yes… yes… You’ve come to the Holy One for help. This is good, very good. Now I tell you: forget your foes. Time to let Holiness search you, inviting the Gaze to gaze upon the dark and hidden chambers of your soul.

For in your honest moments you know–I know you know–you are not without blame, not at all, and the judgments with which you would judge you also deserve.

Linger long with this;
soon the tears will come.

For all at once a shock sets in:
The Judge was gentle.

You came for justice.
You found mercy.

So live the Mercy,
and be free.