SOUL SHIFT

                “You speak of despair,” she spoke, “but today, words are used absent common understandings so that they bear no meaning unless followed on by greater definition.  What is despair to you?”

                He thought, shaping his thought and giving order to the sense, “Despair is when you know the man you should be, are completely and entirely capable of becoming, and aren’t.  I knew in my soul who I should be, how I should be living, and I fell short.  I was living for a paycheck that took far less of my time than I gave it, for an image I did not care about, nor desire to maintain.  I denied my dreams, which are nothing grand but require, still, the true being of myself.  I concealed my compassion for others, afraid to go up to those I sensed in need of something, something as small as a smile, because I was afraid of being seen as different.  In perceiving another in an unhappy state—and doing nothing—I fell into the same.  I didn’t care if my actions were seen.  I didn’t want to be noticed for anything grand, but I wanted to do SOMETHING.  I needed to make a difference.  I found what that is, knew and practiced it in private for years, too afraid to offer it to others from fear it would be rejected or ridiculed, but I’ve learned now that it’s acceptance doesn’t matter.

                Whether rejected or accepted, the product is still of me, and is what I wish to show and share.  It doesn’t need, nor should it be, accepted by all; but to those that see something in it, that’s for whom it’s meant.”

                “And what is that?” she asked.

                He pulled a pen from his pocket and scribbled it down onto a napkin resting on the table.  He pushed the message across for to her to read: “Writing.” 

                She laughed.  “I should have figured that.”

                “There’s more to despair than falling short of actualization.  I wasn’t living my life as I was meant spiritually.  I lived a good life from the outside looking in, but inside, I had a lot of darkness.  I had angers, frustrations, memories, wants, lusts, and though it didn’t always show externally, they made my mind and spirit dark.  I knew I was not living the spirit state my soul was meant to hold.  I blamed myself, and in doing disliked, resented, and did not want to be around who I perceived myself to be.  When the soul is what we most intimately know, where can one find comfort when ever present with a spirit we do not like: our own? 

                I went to church, but an action of bodily presence is not the same as spiritual surrender, and I came to the realization that, whatever I had in this world, if I could not live in peace and love with my soul, I would never live a life that rested well with my being.  No matter the good I did or showed, if it was not from a genuine place of self, there was no spiritual gift in its doing.  I understand that now, even doing the same as I did before, but from a different state of soul.  There is a joy when it comes from goodwill and love for another and not a desire to be perceived as good. 

                Perceptions can be manipulated.  They may be true.  They may be false.  But the state of our soul is the reality with which we live, and the baseline from which we view our world each and every day.  A soul at peace creates a world around it that is the same. 

                I had been reading The Dark Night of the Soul, by Saint John of the Cross, how God breaks and brings us through a darkness to be struck completely with the illumination and light of God, mystic stuff that to many would seem more New Age than classic theology, but it was something I understood, the emergence for a moment, progress, and then slipping back into the Night. 

                My soul knew where it needed helped.  I could have done it that day, but I delayed.  I liked my certain sins, secrets that held in shadows only I knew.  I didn’t want to give them up, but they brought me no joy and descended me to misery—despair. 

                I knew I needed to change my life, what I was doing—with it and within me—and all I needed was a reason.  To ‘just do it’ wasn’t enough.  I needed an extra piece of convincing to push me past my fear of full surrender even as the truth resonated already within me. 

                I was near the end of my Dark Night of the Soul, and in the breaking of my Dawn, God showed a sign.  It shone as invitation to something greater.  It beckoned me to bear witness and become part in the wonder and beauty that was everywhere around me.

                The effect was two-fold: it was the piece that turned my soul to true change.  Where I held darkness, I found light.  Second, in bearing witness then to the beauty and wonder all around, I discovered something from which I could write: the good I saw, sensed, and believed.  The words came easy, fast, and fluid.  It was written through me, but from a truth that transcends self.  I had only to bear witness and write as I saw and sensed of the world and my own soul.

                That was my despair.  I saw and knew all of this in my soul before I ever lived it.  I refused to follow as my faith guided me to be.  I refused to embrace and give myself to the beauty that exists in living of the soul and not coercions of the world.  I could see and feel all of this before I changed, and knowing what could be, instead, I told myself I wasn’t good enough, that I didn’t deserve and couldn’t do it.  This disconnect, that was my despair.

                Then, I changed.  I saw Light, and it was the final piece to a changed soul.  I don’t know how it happens, but a soul is conditioned and when finally made ready, God appears in a sign.  You know exactly what It is, from where It comes, and you are changed.  Even if others doubt, say that you’re no different, the love and good you give thereafter proves otherwise.

                You still fail, but not like before, and in your failures, you no longer hate yourself but understand that you are human and ever working toward a state of soul that will not be attained in full until after this life is done.  You still fall into darkness, but do not stay there as you once did, and in your after-failing, you find a joy that the failures no longer define you.  Their burdens end as soon as you let them fall.  You live good, live Light, and the chains that once kept you low are no more.

                This is where I was.  This is what I experienced.  This is the change that came.  I understand it was a process, something I had to experience to become enlightened to all that I now see.  I don’t know why God chooses who he does as the mediums that turn lives, but I believe there is reason in this too, even when we don’t understand. 

                I will listen to the omens that show, live of the heart as Light: a dream lived in daylight even when no one understands its reason. 

                Maybe I spoke past the question, but I think little now on despair.  It is history, not my present, and I wanted to share and speak what I have found.  I found joy.  I found love, Light, and I am grateful for whatever may become…”

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