What happens to your lifelong pursuit of climbing the world’s tallest mountains after, mysteriously, your leg has been amputated and your eyes no longer see?
There are certain people who are spiritually mature enough (even though they may not know it or believe it) that they are ready for a challenge that will help them shed whatever is in the way of opening to a new level of awakened heart. Â
So much of their familiar self vanishes. They wonder whether they have, or can grow, the resilience being asked: to love, to accept, to embrace no matter what. Â
That they cannot conceive how they might make their way through this seemingly impermeable blackness is precisely its gift. Â
This is the two cent version of what I say when my beloved asks me, as she does regularly, to remind her what’s really going on with her.
 For the past six months or so, she has lived in the Sea of Molasses that is depression. Everything is arduous. Improvement is defined in unexpected ways. Being violently suicidal is no longer alarming, just debilitating. She has drugs to manage it. Meanwhile, the process of discovering the precise pharmaceutical chemistry for her sustained stability feels reminiscent of Thomas Edison’s ten thousand failures that led to the light bulb.Â
She frequently asks me after we’ve talked with someone, “Did I make sense?” She does, but doesn’t realize it.Â
She fights to remember that, for all her life, seeing God in the present moment has been her priority. Â
“Tell me that quote again,” she said the other day.
She meant the one of Keshavadas that Jack Kornfield put in his book “After the Ecstasy, the Laundry”:
Go ahead, light your candles and burn your incense
 and ring your bells and call out to God,Â
but watch out,
 because God will come
 and He will put you on His anvil and fire up His forge
 and beat you and beat you until He turns brass into pure gold.
My beloved and I have been partners for 44 years. It’s not only her I’m reminding.
Love to you both. Your path, your insights, your devotion to light is inspiring. Thank you.
Thank you for reaching out. Holding you both in my heart, and sending light and love…đź’•
Terrie G
Many prayers……Great insight
Your eloquence and insights ring deep and true.
Thank you for sharing your hearts.
Love and Blessings to you both.
RoseMary
May I have permission to share on Facebook the following :What happens to your lifelong pursuit of climbing the world’s tallest mountains after, mysteriously, your leg has been amputated and your eyes no longer see?
There are certain people who are spiritually mature enough (even though they may not know it or believe it) that they are ready for a challenge that will help them shed whatever is in the way of opening to a new level of awakened heart.
So much of their familiar self vanishes. They wonder whether they have, or can grow, the resilience being asked: to love, to accept, to embrace no matter what.
That they cannot conceive how they might make their way through this seemingly impermeable blackness is precisely its gift.
Go ahead, light your candles and burn your incense
and ring your bells and call out to God,
but watch out,
because God will come
and He will put you on His anvil and fire up His forge
and beat you and beat you until He turns brass into pure gold.
Thanks Steve
Sure. At the bottom of the essay on OneMansDance is a link to FB.
Thanks Steve
Love you both
You are such a blessing to each other. I love you, my friend.