Well...it's a deep subject.
How does a person determine how deep their thoughts are?
Most of the time, I confess to being only skin deep and less than multiple layers of tissue at that.
Once in a rare while, I dive into deeper waters to feel around for the topics of greater thought. But I am afraid of deep water by and large.
Although I swim, I am not confident, and I think that hesitancy to plunge into topics of great emotional depth is both cowardice and protection.
My grandmother used to tell her children, "Don't go near the water until you learn to swim!" I don't believe it was intended to be a humorous aphorism, but rather a vocal expression of her fear of getting in over her head and not being able to save herself. And a fear that her children would likewise be tossed in the waves of life and lost.
Sometimes, I am afraid to be more accountable for understanding which in and of itself is damning because I know I am running from the light.
Sometimes it is more scary to step into the light than it is to stand in the near shadows. I fear my own lightness and presence of the light. What if, in that banquet of light and knowledge I am not enough?
What if, as the light distills, it discovers the spotty, tattered reality of my robe and instead of being the glorious white beyond description, it is revealed for the stained and imperfect garment that it truly is?
How can I manage to get through that pain?
Momma told me that some of the wisest people she knew had some of the most tired and worn out knees she had ever seen. They were always involved in deep knee bends that kept them bowed down before the weight of life.
They exercised the options and spent time away from the life that could be thrust upon them as circumstance, and instead worked tirelessly on bended knee to be lifted from their circumstance and into a glorious light that they had no way of earning on their own.
Much of who we are as individuals cannot be claimed as a self-done job. It's not possible. And though people who are accomplished can certainly take some of the credit, they are not any of them self starters.
There is no such thing.
To keep moving after someone has started the ball rolling through personal inertia is a choice.
Most of us through starts and fits and explosions of the boiler move along through life. Sometimes, another person grants us a boon that lifts us far beyond our abilities and moves us along the path in a greater measure than we could possibly have earned or even deserve.
Within our relationships, we either seek out people who make us better, or, in an attempt to hide the light within, we seek easy relationships that require no growth and in exchange, they rob us of all that is worth living.
I don't know if any of this makes any sense. Sometimes, life doesn't make sense to me at all. But I do like this quote by Nelson Mandela, whom I believe to be a man of great stature in his understanding of life's complexities and circumstances:
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won't feel unsure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us, it is within everyone! As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
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