My soul, where are you? Do you hear me? I speak, I call you - are you there? I have returned, I am here again. I have shaken the dust of all the lands from my feet, and I have come to you, I am with you. After long years of long wandering, I have come to you again. Should I tell you everything I have seen, experienced, and drunk in? Or do you not want to hear about all the noise of life and the world? But one thing you must know: the one thing I have learned is that one must live this life. Do you still know me? How long the separation lasted! Everything has become so different. And how did I find you? How strange my journey was! What words should I use to tell you on what twisted paths a good star has guided me to you? Give me your hand, my almost forgotten soul. How warm the joy at seeing you again, you long disavowed soul. Life has led me back to you. Let us thank the life I have lived for all the happy and all the sad hours, for every joy, for every sadness. My soul, my journey should continue with you. I will wander with you and ascend to my solitude.
The spirit is willing but the body is weakLead us then our Savoir that we may not slumberOh Jehovah! Oh Jehovah!Thy strength we beseech to get to the endSo we may render a good account of our arduous journey to the endThe spirit is willing but the body is weakLead us then our Savoir that we may not slumberWell done, good and faithful servants you shall sayUnto they that shall be faithful with a few things in their days.Come and share your Master’s happiness you shall sayUnto they that diligently made their hay in the day.Oh Jehovah! Oh Jehovah! Grant us Thy power to be faithful in our days!The spirit is willing but the body is weak.Lead us then our Savoir that we may not slumber.Certain paths we know seem leading to your throne.But there is only one path to Thy throne we yearn to know;The path of our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus!Come to me all you who grow weary He exclaims!Easy is His yoke; lighter is His burden! Our hearts and minds; our burden!The spirit is willing but the body is weak.Lead us then our Savoir that we may not slumber.The end draws nearer and nearer as we take steps to the end.Many are the things we need to do before we get to the end.But many are the things that take our attention as we journey to the end.A heart of understanding oh Jehovah we beseech;that we may do all things pleasant to Thee with understanding.The spirit is willing but the body is weak.Lead us then our Savoir that we may not slumber.
Though it's fearful, Though it's deep, though it's dark And though you may lose the path, Though you may encounter wolves, You can't just act, You have to listen. you can't just act, You have to think. Though it's dark, There are always wolves, There are always spells, There are always beans, Or a giant dwells there. So into the woods you go again, You have to every now and then. Into the woods, no telling when, Be ready for the journey. Into the woods, but not too fast or what you wish, you lose at last. Into the woods, but mind the past. Into the woods, but mind the future. Into the woods, but not to stray, Or tempt the wolf, or steal from the giant-- The way is dark, The light is dim, But now there's you, me, her, and him. The chances look small, The choices look grim, But everything you learn there Will help when you return there. The light is getting dimmer.. I think I see a glimmer-- Into the woods--you have to grope, But that's the way you learn to cope. Into the woods to find there's hope Of getting through the journey. Into the woods, each time you go, There's more to learn of what you know. Into the woods, but not too slow-- Into the woods, it's nearing midnight-- Into the woods to mind the wolf, To heed the witch, to honor the giant, To mind, to heed, to find, to think, to teach, to join, to go to the Festival! Into the woods, Into the woods, Into the woods, Then out of the woods-- And happy ever after!
This is closer to reality, but not exactly so. In the Earth incarnation we have lost sight of whom and what we are. We have got so entangled in the game that we have forgotten where we came from and have started associating our sense of self with the personality. In humanity we have become defined by our physical selves, our bodies, our minds, our emotions. We think we are our thoughts. We do not remember…we do not remember that from the oneness we created this planet and the planes. We are the creators, and our mission is to detach from all the chains we imposed upon ourselves and create a bridge to the infinite self. Journey back to where we started.
Many things as we have constructed them can be redefined and are neither correct nor incorrect. I love making love to a woman. I love her every quiver, her every movement, her every moan, her every breath. I love the journey my hands make over her every soft curve, the smell of her skin, and I revel in the feminine beauty, unmatched by anything else on this earth. But the core connection is what matters most and, while I don’t know what draws me to the essence of women rather than men or both, I wanted to be swallowed up by exactly that – the mystery of why we don’t want to be without each other.
If we constantly focus only on the stones in our mortal path, we willalmost surely miss the beautiful flower or cool stream provided by theloving Father who outlined our journey. Each day can bring more joythan sorrow when our mortal and spiritual eyes are open to God'sgoodness. Joy in the gospel is not something that begins only in thenext life. It is our privilege now, this very day. We must never allowour burdens to obscure our blessings. There will always be moreblessings than burdens--even if some days it doesn't seem so. Jesussaid, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have itmore abundantly." Enjoy those blessings right now. They are yours andalways will be.
If you were to wake up tomorrow to a life where all your goals had been accomplished but had no memory of the work you put into succeeding, would you feel the happiness that you would have if you had completed your goals yourself? Probably not. Sure, perhaps you would live happily for a while given that you are suddenly living a dream life but in the long run something would be wrong. You wouldn’t have learned the lessons you needed to maintain this new lifestyle. You see, the success is found in the journey, not the finish line. You need to learn the lessons that come with working hard, failing, trying again, and, eventually, succeeding at living the life you have always wanted.
Evidence is always partial. Facts are not truth, though they are part of it – information is not knowledge. And history is not the past – it is the method we have evolved of organising our ignorance of the past. It’s the record of what’s left on the record. It’s the plan of the positions taken, when we to stop the dance to note them down. It’s what’s left in the sieve when the centuries have run through it – a few stones, scraps of writing, scraps of cloth. It is no more “the past” than a birth certificate is a birth, or a script is a performance, or a map is a journey. It is the multiplication of the evidence of fallible and biased witnesses, combined with incomplete accounts of actions not fully understood by the people who performed them. It’s no more than the best we can do, and often it falls short of that.
CourageIt is in the small things we see it.The child's first step,as awesome as an earthquake.The first time you rode a bike,wallowing up the sidewalk.The first spanking when your heartwent on a journey all alone.When they called you crybabyor poor or fatty or crazyand made you into an alien,you drank their acidand concealed it.Later,if you faced the death of bombs and bulletsyou did not do it with a banner,you did it with only a hat tocover your heart.You did not fondle the weakness inside youthough it was there.Your courage was a small coalthat you kept swallowing.If your buddy saved youand died himself in so doing,then his courage was not courage,it was love; love as simple as shaving soap.
No matter how cleverly we disguise our anxieties they bear witness to the imperfect nature of the human heart. To be is to become. To become is not to be. We are a work-in-progress, incomplete, imperfect, unrealised, and by virtue of temporal actions, temporary - a verb more than a noun, an inner quest and an outward odyssey framed by metaphors, like Escher's "Print Gallery"; we make the endless journey round the pictures, retracing our steps in forgetfulness, avoiding but mindful of the space where there are no pictures, where there is no gallery, where there is nothing at all. And like flies in a fly bottle, trapped by a failure of vision, we go round and round and round the moebius loop of a print gallery of our own making, a picture inside a picture inside a picture, forever.