May 30

So here I am this morning. 

I have a responsibility to life that begins when I breathe. 

It isn’t just some mechanical action; there is a duty to live. I haven’t been given life casually or by accident. 

My being is a container that was given to me to gather material. It is a delicate container with a lifespan; eventually, it won’t be able to collect impressions anymore. I’m a servant that was given this container with the task of going out to collect the goodness of life and concentrate its force.

All these things are, of course, allegories, yet they are a very good description of where I am. I start out with a responsibility; and yet instantly I forget it. 

When will I just be here instead of trying to be here? 

It takes a willingness to soften and receive life in a different way. That willingness has to begin at the root of who I am, not in the upper stories where I think about everything. I can’t even afford to think about the root; I need to inhabit it. 

I need to sense it.

There is a finer force even now that flows into me. My relationship with it can be the first thing I encounter, and the first thing I care about. My relationship with it can stay with me throughout the day. Believing that I will always fail and that this isn’t possible is a self-fulfilling prophecy, corrupted with confirmation bias. I have to have faith, hope, and love of and in consciousness. I cannot afford to disbelieve in my ability to serve.

Organic experience is factual experience. It’s objective experience. I inhabit this experience, and the mind quiets. It has so little power here, and it recognizes the authority present in a sensation of life. It is so different than thought itself that thought even stands aside in awe and respect. 

What is this new thing? It asks itself. 

Perhaps I should wait a minute and see.

Into this environment which pauses in my otherwise perpetual race downwards towards stupidity, a breath enters. 

Force is concentrated. 

A new relationship arises. 

Everything I wished for — even things I didn’t know I should wish for — is in it. In fact, it so far exceeds my wish I can see that my entire wish was mistaken. Yet it refuses to define itself; it leads and asks me to follow, always just out of sight. Moving into an unknown landscape that I am invited to participate in. 

The force merges with the search; they are one thing, this finer substance of Being and this longing for a return to the home that I left behind when I was born and no longer remember or recognize.

For a little while, I'm done with arguments. There is a gift here to be accepted; I can just take it and be with myself. 

Maybe this way, I will begin to better understand my responsibility, and the value which was put in my hands before I even asked for it.

Go... and sense, and be well.

Lee

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.