Walking On Thin Ice
Walking The spiritual life is not about ‘dressing up’, though it can often be that for a while. No, our seeking after the Infinite, is, in fact, a ‘dressing-down’. It is about falling through the cracks in the ice, that thin layer that hides the often-brutal unconscious from my sanitized, self-serving thoughts about myself. I cannot go very deep unless I face what is dangerous to myself. Not only myself but others as well. The news is full of stories when someone falls through that layer of ice and comes in contact with the ‘Id’ as Sigmund Freud would call it. The Id according to Freud is
“The division of the psyche that is unconscious and serves as the source of instinctual impulses and demands for immediate satisfaction of primitive needs.”
This is a gift? I would say yes, a gift that paradoxically needs a strong ego to deal with it. I believe that ‘self-knowledge’, has to do with embracing aspects of myself that are painful to look at. Yet there you are, if it is part of me, not dealing with it would have me shut down, and not approach the bright light of the God-Head, in silence, or any kind of prayer. To pray from the heart is to open up myself to the actions of ‘Infinite Truth’. It can seem like hell, but in reality, it is purgatory. A necessary step in letting go of the false idea that I have to be ‘pretty’, or ‘together’ before I can come before the ‘Face of God’, which for me is revealed in Jesus Christ.-Br.MD
