Clay is getting married! Gus is getting married! Mel is having baby number two! Wow, life seems to be going on. Today, I am reminded of one of my favorite novels of all time--The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Milan Kundera opens the novel with a discourse on Nietzsche's doctrine of the eternal recurrence. Nietzsche philosophizes that in a world of objective meaninglessness one must fall into nihilism unless one acts as if one's acts recur eternally, thus giving our acts "weight." In this way, Neitzsche thought that if we would act as if every action we would make would eternally return (be repeated infinitely) the weight of those choices, recurring eternally, would live forever. For me, I feel caught in what Neitzche implied--if even metaphorically. If there were no other existence beyond the one we are in-- wouldn't today (every TODAY) be all the more important? A spiritual person would argue...every choice has an eternal consequence, if even not to be REPEATED litereally, it dictates the texture of our eternities. For me, my life seems caught in an eternal ground-hog day. Though I see weddings and babies made all around me--progressive and deep changes for many I love--I feel myself falling again and again into familiar traps and trials and at once reliving what at the time seemed unique--only to now know I was pre-designedly doomed to repeat it again. It begs the question--if we were to know that we would experience a trial or trauma again and again (Neitzche?) would we react with less excitement the first time around--and be more blase about our moments of devastation? Why get worked up about the good or the bad if we are going to be here again? In any way you puzzle through it--I am here, back in the throws of deep and puzzling difficulty--wondering--why is THIS my return? Does God have an off-kilter appreciation of my strength, or was I predetermined to cope with, set-apart and atone for other's faults and evils infinitely? DID I REALLY raise my hand in heaven and say, "Yes God, I accept that life."
Patience may well be thought of as a gateway virtue, contributing to the growth and strength of its fellow virtues of forgiveness, tolerance, and faith. We can grow in faith only if we are willing to wait patiently for God’s purposes and patterns to unfold in our lives, on His timetable. I need to find an understanding of what patience really is, and then I will cast away these doubts and fears that I have for the life God has chosen for me. I need to see the plan as God has seen it and see that I have in my impatience taken away the proof that has been laid before me to accept already. The Savior said, “In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).
Our words, like our deeds, should be filled with faith and hope and charity, the three great Christian imperatives so desperately needed in the world today. Forgive me Neitzche, but may I begin anew, TODAY recommitted to this thought--our words and our works will and can and must be in perfect reflection with the will of God for us to progress through them or perhaps they WILL return.
May I forgive the place I am back again--forgive those who have brought me here, and offer praises to those who are helping me as I AM here. I recently said, "Even with God, this feels too much to carry." Love is for us present with an infinite return. I am never alone, and though dealing with some of the same problems I have had to deal with before--it is never the same. At each re circling of my trials, God has made me that much stronger, and the pathway that much more paved by those who love me.
Thank goodness for self-revelation! We are more than we were, no matter who we were before. We are never less--always more--and that makes all the difference! God is Good, if even life is an infinitely recircling life of trial.
Patience may well be thought of as a gateway virtue, contributing to the growth and strength of its fellow virtues of forgiveness, tolerance, and faith. We can grow in faith only if we are willing to wait patiently for God’s purposes and patterns to unfold in our lives, on His timetable. I need to find an understanding of what patience really is, and then I will cast away these doubts and fears that I have for the life God has chosen for me. I need to see the plan as God has seen it and see that I have in my impatience taken away the proof that has been laid before me to accept already. The Savior said, “In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).
Our words, like our deeds, should be filled with faith and hope and charity, the three great Christian imperatives so desperately needed in the world today. Forgive me Neitzche, but may I begin anew, TODAY recommitted to this thought--our words and our works will and can and must be in perfect reflection with the will of God for us to progress through them or perhaps they WILL return.
May I forgive the place I am back again--forgive those who have brought me here, and offer praises to those who are helping me as I AM here. I recently said, "Even with God, this feels too much to carry." Love is for us present with an infinite return. I am never alone, and though dealing with some of the same problems I have had to deal with before--it is never the same. At each re circling of my trials, God has made me that much stronger, and the pathway that much more paved by those who love me.
Thank goodness for self-revelation! We are more than we were, no matter who we were before. We are never less--always more--and that makes all the difference! God is Good, if even life is an infinitely recircling life of trial.
2 comments:
baby #2!? oh my! once you pop you can't stop? he hehee .. i love you, dani!
Life certainly is re-circling, but I tend to think of it as a spiral staircase - circling ever-upward and nearer to God, than of a perpetual merry-go-round - taking you past the same views over and over and never with greater perspective or actual progress. One moves us to a higher plane and offers better vantage point, the other just mostly makes us want to throw up...
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