darkemeralds: (DarkEm Lady In Door)
I astonished myself yesterday by listening to an interview with Neale Donald Walsch, author of the Conversations With God books of a decade or so ago.

I never read the books because I'm not much for God, and have spent a good portion of my adult life on the agnostic-to-atheist spectrum, with a recent sojourn in the spare, dry country of Absolute Determinism sans even the smallest parasol of spirituality. But it's harsh and depressing there, and I've been flirting with the ineffable again lately because dammit, it just feels better.*

So anyway. In the interview, Walsch discusses "three secrets to ending the struggle and making your life work," and it was so refreshing that I was able to do some hand-waving around the God stuff and just absorb it. I took lots of notes.

Secret Number One: Your growth process is complete. )

I propose to test the efficacy of this theory over the next few days and report back. I got off to a good start, feeling peaceful and joyous and full of grace, but then the whole wide world started annoying the crap out of me--a phenomenon I've often noticed when my inner defenses are feeling wobbly, so it's probably a good sign, since the inner defenses need to come down.

I'm beginning to see that I need far more stripping-away than I need adding-onto. The accretion of decades' worth of false beliefs, negative images, and general crust will require some serious spiritual exfoliation before the real me shows through. Hopefully there will be no need for a volcano.


*"Why are you so happy all the time?" someone reportedly asked the Dalai Lama, who reportedly answered, "Because it feels better."
darkemeralds: A round magical sigil of mysterious meaning, in bright colors with black outlines. A pen nib is suggested by the intersection of the cryptic forms. (Default)
This morning, seeing that all the kool kidz were tweeting about what they're grateful for on this Thanksgiving Day, I added my 140-characters' worth:

Never sure, as an atheist, what to do w/Thanksgiving. I'm glad of so many things, but thankful? To whom? So will be gladder than usual today.

Possibly 140 characters aren't enough for a statement of a semantic stance: I immediately got some tweets in reply suggesting (as it seemed to me) that my gratitude-challenged nature is sad.

My argument, as I really did try to convey in the limited Twitter space, isn't against noticing and celebrating life's good things--or even against doing so an extra lot on one designated day of the year. I'm just trying to come to terms with the idea of non-specific gratitude.

Being glad of, versus being grateful for )

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darkemeralds: A round magical sigil of mysterious meaning, in bright colors with black outlines. A pen nib is suggested by the intersection of the cryptic forms. (Default)
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