Sunday Message that you'll prolly see on Monday- the technique

Sometimes we don't realize how much of our messes are on us.  This week, for example, was one long infested mess.  And when I got home Friday, I had in my mind and heart several reasons to just beat the hell from something that I was desperately trying to find a way to walk myself back from.  And I sure can't say I am healed from it yet.  However, Friday night I had forced it down enough to just let out a little of it on FB:

So I'll set aside all the other things I want to complain about and just do this one: I really think it sucks that in order for rich people with boats to have a nice two day weekend, I am not allowed to have a two day weekend, boat or otherwise. Really considering quitting my job and seeing if the Communist Revolutionary party has room for a disgruntled capitalist who only wants to sleep in...


But let me tell you a little something about myself.  When I got done with High School, my Dad was quietly determined that I would go to college and make something of myself.  He drove me through the Pell Grant crap, the Financial Aid crap, but it was only after I entered summer number two at IPFW (which should have been everyone's FIRST clue), that he asked what I wanted to do with my life.  Actually, he said, "You need to quit taking electives and figure out a major".  But I had no clue.  I had not been raised to look at the future; we won't get into the parenting dynamics here, but it boils down to everything I might have wanted to do with my life seemed rather impractical, so I did what I thought he wanted, chose a practical business major, and proceeded to get through by the skin of my teeth and do nothing with it.  So if I am not one of those rich people with boats, I really only have myself to blame.

At some point over the weekend, I heard a preacher say something that resounded with me.  As close as I can remember:  The Holy Spirit dwells within us, so we can stand up to any sin.  How much of the Holy Spirit do we have?  As much as we WANT.


Point being, if we aren't relying on the indwelling Spirit to fight our battles, it's because we don't WANT Him to.  And there you have me in a second nutshell.  This is my battle with me, a battle I have chosen to fight alone for far too long.  But the story isn't done here, either.


Because this morning I read this post by a friend using the moniker Galen Pearl.  Galen is involved in studying the Tao as well as a martial artist and her teacher was trying to explain the concept of  repelling an attack by sensing the attacker's energy and moving himself to the empty space around it:

 He demonstrated with a tall, heavy, muscular guy. Time and time again, the attack was deflected, and the attacker either fell backwards or fell past the teacher. The teacher didn’t seem to exert much effort or even move that much. A flip of the wrist, a slight turn of the hips was all it took to render his attacker harmless.


Galen said they were all baffled at how he so easily fended off the attack, and one fellow student asked him for his "technique".  To this he replied, "YOU are the technique."  Meaning, Galen said, "He remains empty and simply responds to what is presented to him."


This is a powerful philosophy.  And it can help all of us that struggle with the other problems I have been on about.  If I am my own enemy, my own handicap, then maybe I need to shift to where I am "not"- past my preconceptions, past my ingrained prejudices and habits, to where the Spirit waits for me to come.  To where the goal isn't a working machine, an intelligent workplace, a Saturday sleeping in.  To where the goal has been achieved, and I'm just here to make my way there.