"If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thru' narrow chinks of his cavern."
~ William Blake
For some reason these words from William Blake kept creeping into my mind today. Not sure why exactly. Maybe, because for a time I hoped “the doors of perception” would be cleansed for me - but now, especially today, I believe I will prefer to only look through the “narrow chinks” and remain in my “cavern” as I no longer want to risk anything or any part of me. It is too hard to see everything as it is, the infinite is too dangerous and love is too messy.
The solitude and loneliness of the cavern may well be the preferable state, a happy self imposed exile of delusion so as to pretend as all is well whether or not that is the reality or not.
What I believed to be real may have only been a dream, a fleeting sense of worth, of meaning…that now finds itself consumed by the fear that rages in all of our hearts. So is Alfred Tennyson right in his pithy commentary on love, “'Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all…”? Hmmmm… not sure about that – maybe not loving at all and then not ever having to feel the pain of loss is better? If you never loved, you would never loose and as a consequence to not know or taste what that love is would be preferable to the bitter taste of loss.
What is the worth of a life? Where is the meaning in it all? As I have been contemplating life today there seems to be a confluence of circumstances and moments that are increasingly difficult to make any sense out of? I wonder if there is really enough grace for all the sideways actions and missteps in the course of a life…is that the means of escape from all the confusion – grace?
It is so difficult to see what our Father is doing in our lives. Why do we get caught up in the hours & the minutes of our lives instead of thinking what the big picture might be... when we see the stories in the Bible about different people. We want things to happen now, and they
ReplyDeletenever do. It is hard to keep on going forward and to believe that all that happens to us that we don't like or understand, God intends for our good. Oh just to be thankful to God for giving
us the privilege to be caught up in His Will.
If we could always bring to mind that it is
all about Him and what He has gone through to love us, so we can see how impure we are, and
that opens the door of grace for us.
God's light even shines through "the narrow
chinks" of our caverns. Yes life is messy, but
God cleans it up. It is so hard to believe that"because behind every act of forgiveness lies
a wound of betrayal, and the pain of being betrayed does not easily fade away"P.Yancy
Another quote from P.Yancy I think explains why life is a mess.."Like a spiritual defect encoded in the family DNA, ungrace gets passed on in an unbroken chain."
"They are prepared for the potluck supper at
First Presbyterian but not for the marraige supper of the Lamb....F.Buechner
And to quote off the top of my head Greg Boyd..
"we want to eat of the tree of the fruit of knowlege of good and evil. God wants us to love
each other by accepting His gift of grace and
giving it to others. Life is tough but God is tougher, but for some reason it still remains tough,but in time grace melts ungrace.
Thank you for all you write, because God is
using you to help me and others THINK.
Love you..mom
I think that you should channel your musings into a novel - you are an excellent writer. Now that you are graduated, wouldn't a published book be great?
ReplyDeleteAunt Carol