Unoriginal Confessions

I've been exploring this new life-metaphor on gardening, or the concept of a garden. Well, I suppose it really isn't new...since it's the oldest metaphor known to man. But to me, it's like getting a new-used car, or watching a re-run on television that I never saw when it first aired.

I never saw all this stuff before...

I live my life in the future. I am frantic, OCD, preoccupied, rushed, and fueled by a sense of martyrdom at having to do so much in such a short time to try to save the world. There are lots of false paradigms embedded within me that this stems from; I'm not going to go into all the details of the bad theology and naturally fallen psychosis I am recovering from.

Today, however, I feel very healthy. Very, very healthy.

My steps feel light. It isn't the coffee - I felt like this from the moment I started my day. There used to be this heaviness around me, this gravity-like force that seemed to choke the atmosphere around me and make it more like walking under miles of ocean or trying to run in a dream (you know those dreams where you run and run and it's like your legs are just moving in place because you aren't going anywhere? That, and discovering that I'm in a public place and not wearing any clothes, is one of the only recurring dreams I've had throughout my life...hmmm, what does that say about my unconscious?)

I don't need to save the world. That's obvious. How did I ever think otherwise? What does dust have to do with saving dust? Life is a vapor.

Progress is not the point. Relationship is the point. It's a mystery...the most obscure, unsure, incalculable, unsystematizable (thanks House of Mercy), and uncontrollable thing in the world.

It's like a garden. Your character and who you are becoming is what life really is. It's not this checklist of accomplishments, it's not a tower to be built to reach to the level or position of the Almighty (another little midrash from the original Book).

LIVE IN THE NOW. It's your character that you're producing. When you sit down to read a book, read the words in the book. Don't think about what you're going to do when you're done reading and feel so accomplished and good about yourself having added another book to the shelf as a testament to your knowledge. With every thought, word and action (but thoughts are the seedlings of all of them) you are either building a tower or tilling a garden. You till, plant, and water. But God makes it grow.

Stop thinking. Be present. Pay attention to the person talking to you. This moment - this miracle of interaction between two human beings, immortal souls who will reign (reign?) in eternity together - will never come again. You didn't invent it, you're not responsible for producing it. It was given to you. You are the beneficiary, the recipient. Receive well. Say "thank you." This is your spiritual act of worship. This is the kingdom.

Make it your highest aim to respect other people. Be self-aware, but don't be self-conscious. Put others before yourself. Make the effort - this is what a conversation is all about. Engaging. It's hard work. Damned hard work. It won't do itself. The ground has to be tilled.