Story 1 - loving truth…
Part 1 - seeing the singularity of truth.
Once there was a boy named Blaine.
Blaine was afflicted with a strange un-easiness which meant that as soon as he grew, and learned something he despised & blamed his former state of ignorance and his former unformed or immature beliefs.
This led to the curious condition where he would always be putting down his situation of a year ago that he had now grown through and from which he had come to see deeper and more. It was as though his approach to life saw immaturity and weakness as the same as evil and wrongness. Blaine had a lot to learn especially about this large "approach", but unless he allowed himself to "just drop", this former way of approaching life, if he held on to it he would then just blame it as a wrong state and not be able to see it's contribution to his journey and acknowledge iggt as a contributor to his pathway to growth, maturity and understanding. Blaine was stuck unless something could free him from this whole way of approaching life and things; a meta-narrative that now had him in its talons.
Part 2 - lacking love...
But worse still (than the logical absurdity of looking down on and relegating to "falseness" every path that has brought you to your present understanding), Blaine found that no one wanted to be with him, because if they understood less than him they felt like he was judging them, or blaming them, or laughing at them.
If however, they understood more than him (and they had his mindset), then they would be laughing at or blaming or judging him. Which wouldn't make him want to be around them.
So this set him up for a situation in which he could have very few good friends.
Part 3 - can you help me? [by writing this next Part (& pasting it in the "Post a Comment" on this blog) below]
The best bit of all...
Dot points which may act as the "spermatozoa" that meet with the creative, nesting, provisioning, living "ovum", the way of things that real truth loves (and has united with) to give birth to more stories, songs, dramas, rhymes, chants, jokes & creative expressions:
In learning to grow how did Blaine cope? (This is a part of the Story of My Life) How could he ever get out of "putting down" his former state of ignorance before he learnt something (which is a necessary pre-requisite to the learning process, when one is NOT omniscient)? Some ways to move forward:
- He could celebrate what he has now learnt! Putting creative energy into celebrating the far-reaching consequences at least those that he could see of his new insight into and understanding into the way God's world works and into the way he's made us to live within it - with him, and with each other, and with ourselves as a part of humanity. In celebrating the new insight and understanding he would be spending his time amplifying and magnifying the goodness that has now occurred in his life or come to him, & wouldn't be spending his time and energy in putting down his former state of understanding and beliefs.
- He could relate the story of the frustration or feeling of “something-is-missing” which he experienced at the time of his former ignorance or misunderstanding or immature understanding. This would help people understand his reasons for celebrating this new insight and goodness, and enable them to enter into his celebration with him. (A bit like the owner of the sheep that was lost, when it was found he came back and called his friends together; or the lady who lost the dowry money and swept the floor to find it and then called her friends to celebrate with her.)
- He could make a creative expression of this new insight. Maybe name it. This might help him to find other expressions or instances of the same insight coming into other people's lives. And this would enable him to now meet the community of other humans who have gained this bit of understanding and insight (into God's world) and to play his part within that community. So now he is not a Lone Ranger, but is able to see & celebrate his connection with many different parts of humanity - all on a journey of coming to know (& be known).
- He could make a story up, that might help take that insight and it's discovery and express it in a way that is not involving (him and his world around him in) the present instance, but a way that might be showing the credibility of this insight or truth or understanding or approach to things, in a way that could be expressed in other situations or instances. In this way people may be more open to, or less guarded against, this insight, as it comes from another direction or an unexpected source or genre to which they're more open.
- He could get other genre to try to express the same insight or learning or new appreciation or deeper understanding. So, for instance, if he has already used poetry & film, to now have a go at using song & dance, or another artwork like nursery rhymes, or chants. To come at it from different angles, allowing him to hit on different learning styles, or circumvent different fears or defensive stances, of others (or even himself).
- Maybe look for other analogies, or parables, or likenesses, that are using a similar principle, or principles which have been found in similar ways. It could be a parable on the method of discovery, or the way of coming to understand the content that has now been discovered.
- He could ask God, while in his presence, for another way to move forward in reality, and to take this insight (which he is now focusing on more than the embarrassment of his previous immaturity, or the simply the insufficiency of his previous state) out to others, as well… (e.g. some thoughts just came to me: sometimes you can partially understand something by looking at it's opposite, or shadow, or absence; he could learn to make the distinction, and see the added value gained when one moves from knowing things, ideas, concepts, & truths, to knowing people (and then again, to being known by them).
Blaine, who was a "self-blamer", who came from a long line of "history-haters", found a friend one day.
ReplyDeleteHis friend's name was Hayden. Hayden was a man who was driven to become who Blaine was not.
Blaine saw how his friend was slowly becoming what he himself aspired to be, which kicked Blaine into the next gear.
Now, before I tell you what Blaine wanted to become, I want to tell you, that Blaine himself did not know what he wanted his future to be like, although, he felt as if the general direction he was heading in wasn't bad, and he was somehow thankful for what he felt he was becoming.
It dawned on him one day, that the things about his past, that he despised, were maybe not so embarrassing as he had always assumed, and perhaps if he looked back there, quietly, and intently, without flinching, or becoming angry and biased towards the bettering of his own self-image, then perhaps somehow he might see something valuable that he had never shared with his friend Hayden, and Hayden could therefore not beat him to it.
I wrote that bit after reading that the story you posted was about you..
DeleteI hope the bit I wrote is helpful anyway, even though it might not be exactly true for you..
..but, as I've started, I'll continue..
ReplyDeleteThe way that Blaine went to the start of his expedition was, as many expeditions go, a quietly nerve-renching experience for him.
It took him a little while to get over his first attempt to see into the depths of his past, and yet it was somehow satisfying to do. That said, it was because Blaine saw his past in the light of truth, that he could accept his immaturity, and because he felt loved, that he realised the value of what he soon found. And, having said that, I can say that it was Blaine's knowledge that other people, even Hayden, could benefit from what he himself had learned, that made him appreciate the valuable thing. And, it was only that there were people other than Blaine around, that he could have gotten to think about himself in the past tense at all, which made him very thankful for any person whom he met, which in turn made him think about things like God, and Space, and the depths of the Ocean, and Death, and which somehow brought him to think about something that a Churchy had said to him about loving himself, and loving others too, in the same way.
"Could that work..?", thought Blaine to himself.. " what people?"
It was then that he remembered something the bloke had said about people all being neighbours, or family, or something, like a big body with different parts..was that it? Or, was it something about having different types of armour on one body?