Today's Draw: Commitment from the Snowland Deck in the
Spirit position from the Deck of 1000 Spreads. What would you sacrifice to
commit to a higher power? Would you be willing to hand over the tightly held reins
of your life? Would you be willing to break away from pack thinking and pack
action?
I believe there's a place in our spiritual journeys where we
reach a personal tipping point—do we stay where we are or do we go for the gold?
And by that, I'm talking about reaching a point where you believe in some sort
of higher power or great mystery, you've established a connection to this energy, you've become a better version of yourself,
you're a pretty "good person", you're pretty good to others....and
that's enough. You've gotten further along your path than you imagined and you
feel your work is done.
Sometimes reaching that place feels like you're truly done.
There's no further to go...or not much further to go. You're definitely in the
upper percentiles as far as enlightenment is concerned. You're good.
And you know what? There really is no need to go farther.
However, I'm choosing to venture beyond that and explore what I call
"doing the hard things". We talk about them sometimes on this blog.
For example, taking your faith to a place where you can sit
solidly in the midst of uncertainty or even foreboding and KNOW nothing ever
goes wrong—everything is on your side. Or say someone has done you bad and, instead of following the urge
to seek your own justice, you trust that God will sort things out, and you let
go of the situation. Or resisting the urge to demonize those who wronged you
and, instead, finding genuine forgiveness and compassion for them.
I call these things the hard things, because that's what
they are. It's easy to trust God's got your back when things are going ok to
well. It's harder when things aren't looking so good. So you turn yourself over
to worry and doubt, maybe even pray to God to watch over you (as if he ever
stopped.) Because certainly he
wouldn't have put you in such a situation had he been looking over you, right?
The "hard thing" is to trust that God put you in whatever situation
you're in because he does love you and *is* looking out for you. The hard thing
is to never doubt in the first place.
See what I'm saying? It's just a level beyond. It's a level
beyond the culturally trained responses...the normal human responses...we have.
It's about true release...letting go of control over the aspects of your life
and whatever you think others should do or be in order to be "right"
in this world. And are you going to be 100% at this? No. But you're going to
retrain the way you respond to the stimuli around you. And it's hard because
our responses are so deeply ingrained in us....and our urge to steer the ship
is also so deeply ingrained.
So all of this is a long way to saying that today's card
combo is about your commitment to your spiritual path. How committed are you?
Are you going to take it as far as you can in this lifetime, challenging
yourself to change and grow and tackle the hard things until your last earthly
breath? Or are you just happy knowing your God and being and being more decent
than most?
One of the things I've seen in areas where I've ventured
past the tipping point is that a) it's lonely out there and b) you can get
vilified for not joining in the witch hunts and shunning that people are wont
to do when they don't trust God's divine justice and wisdom—when they're
trying to control and contain every little detail around them.
Embracing "the least of us"—or even the uniquely
flawed—as part of the community is one of those hard things I was talking
about. Rejecting them is pretty much the cause behind every senseless slaughter
in our history. It was certainly the spirit behind Nazism...reject what's
different, allow only what the few deem acceptable. So if you're going to embrace
and forgive and see others as mirrors of yourself...if you're going to see your
"enemy" as your teacher...then you are a threat, a scourge that must
be dealt with. It sounds ugly. But that's what you're doing if you can't move
beyond that particular tipping point and love your enemy as you love yourself. So there are times you'll wonder what you're doing this for.
If you continue your journey past the paved path, you'll
come across a number of these "difficult things". There are more
societal rewards for those that stay on the pavement. But ultimately there's more clarity,
connection, freedom and genuine security for those who do.
You never stop being a fallible human. But you do begin to
see things differently when you manage to shed your sheepskin and see through
the eyes of your divine self. You sometimes see ugliness where you once saw
"right thinking and right action". And you sometimes see beauty where
you once saw ugliness. And, just as water seeks its own level, you somehow find
others to travel the less trodden path alongside you. But you have to leave the
approval of the masses behind when you commit to the hard thing.
For some, that will be too high a price to pay in this lifetime. For others, it will be just the salvation they came here this time around to seek. Where do you fall in all of this?
You bring a spiritual richness to Tarot that few do, Tierney. Thank you for moving (far) past the pavement and serving as an inspiration to others off the beaten path.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Janet. :)
ReplyDelete