Paper Owls and Pool Tables

The dates, events and expressed 

thoughts in this story are true.

How you interpret the events 

is your personal choice.               

It was several months after the funeral of my grandfather, my mother’s father. My son was quietly lying in the playpen, which was standing close to my book case just below the tiny shelves I had put up to show off my collection of paper birds. I think all birds are lovely, in this area I am a bit more broad minded than my grandfather who was only fascinated by owls.
I was cleaning dishes in my "open plan kitchen" from where I could easily keep an eye on my child.  Nothing special was going on, just a nice domestic afternoon…. Until I spontaneously let go of whichever item I was washing. I stepped over to the playpen and picked up my dozing toddler, sensing something indefinite, yet clearly negative. I held my boy close to me, turning away from the playpen, surprised about my own action. “Plop” I heard behind my back. The head of my paper owl had popped off and fallen into the playpen, hitting the baby blanket with its sharp beak, right where my child had lain. I stared at the owl’s head from over my shoulder. “This is my grandfather” it flashed through my being, “trying to play a sick joke.”

The incident 'though small and without consequences stuck to me, so that evening at my mother’s house I told her about this strange ‘coincidence’ and the conclusion that had forced itself upon me.

We laughed at it. This kind of superstition is like using herbs. In small amounts they give spice to life, but too much is just bad taste.

Just moments later the phone rang. It was my uncle, my mother’s brother. 
“Ynez, I guess I’m lucky to be alive. You never guess what happened to me today.”

Being the only son, my uncle inherited my grandfather’s pool table. Because of it’s impossible size the table was disassembled and the heavy tabletop was stored on the landing of the second floor, standing upright opposite the staircase.

“I was going downstairs and halfway down I heard a strange rumble. I looked back and saw the pool table coming after me. I didn’t make it downstairs, the table knocked me over and landed on top of me. My girlfriend had to help me crawl from under it. Oh m. G.. Ynez, It was as if my father overturned the pool table to hurt me.”

Shifting Attitude

Matthew 6:34

 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, 
for tomorrow will worry about itself. 
Each day has enough trouble of its own.

This morning I woke up with a hangover without having had a party.  Nor alcohol either. Well. to be honest... I did have a party...  sort of. Indulging in doing things that I like ignoring the pile of  things that Should be done. Should with a capital s.This morning the Pile grinned at me, towering over me, showing its ugly overgrown brown teeth. I think it had a bad breath too.

I responded in my usual way, filling my empty head with lines like "I hate my life"  "I'm a failure"  "You fool, you make the same mistakes over and over. You'll never grow up" and "Why don't you have more discipline, you spineless slob".
Then someone tapped me on the shoulder. Lightly as a feather. I couldn't see him but I heard him speak to me. "You advocate unconditional love. Not judging, not demanding things from others. Not trying to shape them according to your taste.  Why don't you look at me that way. As if I'm your child or partner. Let me be the way I want to be. Trust me and I'll surprise you."

What did this spirit suggest? That Life is outside of me?. That there is a Me, but not such a thing as <<My Life>> ? So Life will always be there, even without Me... now that is true. A morbid truth, but a fact of life.  It also implies that there will always be Me, even when Life stops. Or to put it more lightly: when Life and I have separated. 

I felt the spirit patiently waiting for my answer. "Well?"  
"I like it". I replied, warming to the idea. "We're partners, I will not judge you nor manipulate or force you, so you can show me what you're like. But you will not judge me either! I'm good and you'll love me even though I falter at times."  What a relief to look at myself that way. And oh boy, will we make a creative team!
The spirit moved back to its own realm, taking my burden with him. The Pile no longer towered over me.
Being left alone I picked up my life again  
no, :-)    just my clothes for today.    [Please note the metaphor]

Jo

Back to two types of knowledge

UNDER CONSTRUCTION


I'd like to continue with my dichotmy: wordly knowledge versus
True Knowledge.


Quote from: 

<<  The Nag Hammadi Library;

An Introduction to Gnosticism and The Nag Hammadi Library  >>

 editor James M Robinson


" ...These Christians are now called gnostics, from the
Greek word gnosis, usually translated as "knowledge." For as those who claim to know nothing
about ultimate reality are called agnostic (literally, "not knowing"), the person who does claim to
know such things is called gnostic ("knowing"). But gnosis is not primarily rational knowledge.
The Greek language distinguishes between scientific or reflective knowledge ("He knows
mathematics") and knowing through observation or experience ("He knows me"), which is gnosis.
As the gnostics use the term, we could translate it as "insight," for gnosis involves an intuitive
process of knowing oneself. And to know oneself, they claimed, is to know human nature and
human destiny. According to the gnostic teacher Theodotus, writing in Asia Minor (c. 140-160),
the gnostic is one has come to understand who we were, and what we have become; where we
were... whither we are hastening; from what we are being released; what birth is, and what is
rebirth.
Yet to know oneself, at the deepest level, is simultaneously to know God; this is the secret of
gnosis. Another gnostic teacher, Monoimus, says:
Abandon the search for God and the creation and other matters of a similar sort. Look for him by
taking yourself as the starting point. Learn who it is within you who makes everything his own
and says, "My God, my mind, my thought, my soul, my body." Learn the sources of sorrow:, joy,
love, hate . . . If you carefully investigate these matters you will find him in yourself."

Eyes of Love

Wow, I've been away for such a long time. Not a geographical journey, not even a pleasant trip while staying home...  I just took the wrong turn and traveled down the wrong road: earning money, selling my soul, no longer being able to dream and write...  
It took me a while to see it and then I had to get back on the right track. I hope I'll stay on it now... but I'm afraid I'm very good at getting lost. 

Here's just a small line, to get used to blogging again...

Loving someone 

simply means

you see this person 

just as God had intended 

her or him to be.