Reflection should be
empowering. It should lead us to new
insights and commitments. However, hope
as we might, this is not always the case.
Hence, most oftentimes the opposite occurs. Reflection can also sometimes immobilize
us. It continuously reminds us of the
gap between our willing and wanting and our acting, our desire and drive and
our performance, our calling and intention and our achievements.
Sadly, try as we might, this gap will
never be totally eradicated or closed.
We will never achieve all that we would like to do.
Like there are two
stories of our life: the public and the private. There is the story that is known to our close
kin like that of our family and our friends and the story that we embroider
inside our own heads. These two stories
do not always converge. There can be the
public success and the personal inner pain.
There can be the social persona of strength and the inner persona of
anxiety, vulnerability and fragility.
It is not easy and
perhaps never will be, to integrate the two stories. Yet we must begin to hear its tale and listen
to its pain and disappointment.
Integrating the two stories will mean that both have to change. The story of strength should thus start to
reflect a new fragility and vulnerability.
The story of fear and anxiety should then start to reflect new hope and
optimism.
Thus, in our attempt to integrate these
two paths, it will bring about a new sense of wholeness and well being. For in our journey towards maturity it
entails not only integrating the light but also the dark side of our
story. Success and pain, strength and
vulnerability thus weave a new pattern of being that paradoxically does not
diminish us, rather makes us more sensitive and thus stronger.
There is however a
downside to our quest for integration, to become spiritually attuned
persons. We can become so concerned to
hear what our inner voice or what the spirit is saying that we become sometimes
more concerned with only listening than with carrying out the things we feel we
must do.
Moreover, we can
also become paralytic by just wanting only to hear things explicitly when more
often than not the spirit only whispers embryonic ideas. Thus, from the inner voice we oftentimes do
not get fully developed plans. More
often, we just get vague intuitions and as yet unclear suggestions.
It is important
therefore, that, we are satisfied with this and thus start to find ways by
which we can express these undeveloped ideas.
Hence, the movement to praxis is not from clearly developed plans. Rather, frequently it is the movement from
the hunch to try things out, to a much clearer understanding of what should we
be doing and how should we do it. We thus
need to put legs to our ideas, for it is only by working things out in the real
world that our idea can become clearer.
The challenge to ‘do
it,’
therefore, becomes an important part of confirming our thoughts, ideas, hopes
and dreams.
For setting our
hearts on something involves not only serious aspirations, but also strong
determination. It involves not only
prayerful consideration, but also purposeful action. Since we frequently fall prey in setting our
hearts on that which is only a vague shadow, hence, we need to learn to make
faith practical by beginning to walk in that which is not yet wholly clear.
Why this hardship in
our quest? For the more self-reflective
we are, the more aware we become of our failings and imperfections even when
others think that we are doing well. It
has nothing to do with living a lie or being inconsistent. It is rather, a recognition of our humanity
and the incompleteness that we all must acknowledge, face, accept and endure.
This recognition
however, need not and should not be disempowering. It need not make us pessimistic and
skeptical. For it can also have the
opposite effects. Thus, it can make us
realize that good comes out of imperfection, strength out of weakness, and
blessing out of our fragility.
But this can only
happen when even in the midst of our quest for wholeness we can see hope in the
face of our imperfections. Then we can
truly ‘be there.’
___________
Written by: Swiss Wenger
___________
Written by: Swiss Wenger
Email: swisswenger09@gmail.com
