meaning in strife
“If you fall… dive”.
-Joseph Campbell
It is not an easy task to find meaning or Grace in the darkest moments of our lives. We may feel so destitute, so alienated from God, so unworthy, that we sink into the depth of our ruminating mind, tortured by our own thoughts and memories. Intellectually, the conclusions we often arrive at from these scenarios leave us feeling cold and unwanted, stranded in the desert.
Is there a purpose for our wandering in such arid planes? We may find that whatever we cannot carry with us now, what we had been carrying in times past, does not suit us any longer. The same garments, beliefs about ourselves or others, weigh us down and exhaust. They are beloved in our eyes, precious things… but no more permanent than the sandy footprints we instill in the earth below us. Wiping painful tears away from withered eyes, we forgo what no longer serves us. Thus begins the rite of purification and initiation to the Promised Land.
Full surrender may not occur voluntarily when dealing with the egos constant seeking for an ideal, the squabbling dogs of ambition and achievement. The alter we once used to garnish our idols is the same one we lay at now, with no choice but to be incinerated to ash, rising up to the heavens and born anew. It is a fearful thing from the egoic perspective because constancy is completely abandoned here. From the eternal perspective, the offering of yourself is quite a joyful thing because it is the metamorphosis of form and energy into something grandiose and elegant.
There is fullness of joy in complete emptiness. The two words become synonymous and lose their meaning as symbols. The mind becomes quiet, so, so quiet, and its constant reaching, grasping for meaning ceases. Paradoxically, this is where meaning is found- when one discovers the meaning they were striving for is something they had all along. From this state, right action becomes possible. Action that is not taken to achieve a spiritual result, bring about some sort of hedonistic pleasure, but a complete and utter surrender to the Will of God. Here alone there is meaning and you will not find it anywhere outside.
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me”. Psalms 23:4 King James Version (KJV)