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just start

Sometimes I sit here at my computer and sift through the thoughts in my mind and some of the readings I have done lately and a few of the life situations that have made an impression on me, and as I think and pray and ponder and try to envision what epic written work will spring forth from my fingers next, I realise I just have to start. Waiting and planning will not make vision concrete. There is always life happening in and around me. There is always learning, there will always be thoughts coming, situations arising, and truth to be discovered anew. It is a matter of jumping in and engaging with my world and seeing where we can go, what I can make of it, do with it, where this path will take me.

Sometimes my internal life thinks it is a replacement for the external one. I cannot let it go there. I need the jostling contact with people both familiar and strange, the abrupt and even uncomfortable collision with the cultures around me, the intrusion of other wills trying to bend me to theirs, and the challenge of doing things I have never done before and being faced with decisions I have never made before. I have been known to criticise people for placing too much importance on the intellect and neglecting the emotions. I will now admit to you that I have been and still occasionally am, a snob of a different sort - a spiritual snob. My internal world can be so real and intense that like someone who refuses to wake from a dream, I can lock myself in this mystic realm and shut out everything and everyone else. But there is no substantial power in staying in this place. One must come out of it in order to see something happen.
The real beauty and dynamism comes when the mystical smacks full force into the physical, when the spiritual hits the ground running so hard it leaves an indelible impact on the earth. I daresay most of us struggle with living too much in one realm or the other - either too earthy and temporal or too spiritual and irrelevant. A few years ago a friend of mine prayed for me and told me I am a person with an incarnational lifestyle. YES! I so want that. My desire is to be the most real and touchable person, yet to also be someone intimately familiar with the mystic and spiritual realm. What do I have to give to others if I do not cultivate a depth of understanding of eternal truth? How can anyone hear this truth if I do not sweat and roll around in the earthy soil where everyone else is toiling and living?
So I just start. I talk to God and read mystical inspired words and listen. I dream and question and write and make space for silence. And then I go out and play pool with friends, scrub the toilet, talk to the frazzled girl at the customer service desk, eat and laugh and dance and do laundry. This is life. One life. Not two different parts. Not separated. And I only get there by starting now. Who knows where it will lead?
Here are 2 random branches in the snow beside my house.
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Comments

david santos said…
Happy New Year, Matte! And best wishes for a healthy and successful 2008
2:55 PM
Shelley said…
yes and amen and me too. :) Happy New Year Matte. Here's too more action and insights in 2008!
12:00 PM
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