A Transformed Life And A Move In The Right Direction

I often think about how fragile life is. I liken it to a flower that blooms, covered with glossy, beaded dew drops in the morning, but by the time the storms of life, the challenges, family related issues, sickness, death of a loved one, and everything else that comes to it each day, the moisture evaporates from it and life fades away into the sunset. None of us are invincible. We are not larger than life, though a few may think that way. We are human first and everything else after. And regardless of how well put together our plans are, life gets in the way of them.

While I do agree with the inference she made about our body, its expression, and the analogy of it being our encyclopedia, I would for this occasion, and to make a point differ in part with the latter part of the statement in saying that “In the marriage of flesh and spirit divorce is impossible.” That may be true for some, but for others, myself included, flesh and spirit are in constant disagreement.

The old mindset (flesh) refuses to die, while the new mindset (spirit) continuously challenge its course of actions and highly detestable behavior. It’s like a love hate relationship between them both. And so the constant fighting makes it all the more possible for spirit to say to the flesh (body), ‘enough is enough! You are not my master and how I feel on any given day is not driven by your desires and your selfish motivation. I refuse to entertain you any more.’

That brings me to my “crash landing” today. I thumped and I ‘hit the ground’ hard just feeling so overwhelmed with everything that life was dishing out at me. It was a climax. Not the kind of climax I anticipated for my vacation. But it was. One final throw down and then it was an instant divorcing of flesh from spirit. My body immediately fell apart. My heart tore into pieces. I became weak. I felt unloved, uncared for, unappreciated, even rejected. It was a tidal wave of emotions as I wept uncontrollably.

And so the many questions as I later began to evaluate myself follows:

Did I set the level of expectation for myself and for others too high? Did I even take into close consideration that those who I often would look to for support and to whom I rendered my service to are also comprised of the same flesh and spirit and that the arm of flesh fails us?

Did I set myself up for the ‘crash landing’ by constantly giving of myself to others, thinking that if I only dug a bit deeper each time and give more, that somehow things would be different, and that I would be accepted into the fellowship with those whom I constantly give of myself to?

Is it a sign of weakness to let my humanity show when the going gets tough? Did I let my guards down this time? What might my body be trying to tell me about how I am living my life?

Still, it is not a good feeling when you give to the same people all of the time and you get nothing back in return. That’s like withdrawing all of your cash resources from the bank through the ATM and then there is no income to bring your account back to the desired level. So you are constantly in the red, in deficit. It also deviates from biblical principal of sowing and reaping. You sow by the giving of your tithes and offering, through your faith, praying for others, through you service to others, to name a few, then it is natural based on that principle for you the sower to expect a harvest in return.

But as I relied on a very loving, supportive and wonderful friend to rescue me and pick me back up, I see how life must go on. I grappled with the realization of two choices before me – choose to wallow more in self pity or move on in life with positive and realistic expectations and the anticipation that as morning breaks into day, I will rise and my joy will come once again. Today ended another chapter in my life, but I also witnessed the beginning of a new one.

My experience provided me with a perfect opportunity to do as Deb Shapiro alluded to and that is, to explore the extraordinary interplay of energies between the many aspects of my personality – my needs, unconscious reactions, repressed emotions, aspirations and fears. With the functioning of our physical system and its capacity to maintain itself, she said that we soon realise how very wise the body is. Further, she highlighted that our body (flesh) with its intricately detailed systems and operations, portrays infinite intelligence and compassion, constantly giving us the means to understand ourselves further, to confront issues we are not looking at, and to go beyond that which is holding us back.