Matthew McKay's Blog, page 2
September 4, 2013
Number Ninety Four
Joy teaches as much as pain. Joy -- the passionate living of this moment -- is the window through which can be glipsed a soul's essence; a soul's purpose.
Joy is not bought, and there is no price to pay later. Joy is not found; it is entered as one enters the moment. It is held as one holds a child.
Joy is a path made of the now that leads to a center -- a center that always holds, always is there, always tells the truth.
Joy is not bought, and there is no price to pay later. Joy is not found; it is entered as one enters the moment. It is held as one holds a child.
Joy is a path made of the now that leads to a center -- a center that always holds, always is there, always tells the truth.
July 12, 2013
Number Ninety Three
We especially must love our flaws. But loving the flaw is not living the flaw. Loving the impulse to hurt isn't the act of hurting. What we do matters. It is how we love everything outside ourselves. Choosing to be kind -- when everything inside demands cruelty -- is an act of love toward another. Accepting the desire to be cruel is an act of love toward the self.
Number Ninety Two
Each incarnation requires the soul to struggle with a key flaw -- addiction, shame, fear, hubris, narcissism -- which in fact is a gift. It is the illness we have chosen, the work we have selected to do. The flaw both drives us to catastrophe, and lights a path toward the learning we came here for.
Our virtues, which we celebrate, and weave into our identity, are less important than the flaw. Our virtues are the toolbox we were given for this struggle. And it's the struggle that matters above all.
Our virtues, which we celebrate, and weave into our identity, are less important than the flaw. Our virtues are the toolbox we were given for this struggle. And it's the struggle that matters above all.
July 5, 2013
Number Ninety One
The lessons of loss begin early. A child's favorite toy is left somewhere and never found. A parent turns angry or disappears, striking at a child's feelings of safety or worth. Over time the losses mount -- people, places, things that were loved -- sometimes losing even faith or trust or sense of self.
There is nothing we have that can't be taken away.
The lesson of loss is not surrender, not detachment. It is not to prepare for the worst, not to numb or rid the self of desire. The lesson of loss is a more perfect form of love; a love that requires nothing, that depends on nothing -- not even the presence of the beloved.
The lesson is to love the essence and not the object. The object can be lost, changed, eroded by time. The essence exists always in consciousness -- outside of space and time -- and is the true, immutable core of what and who we love.
Loss leads to a form of love that is unchanged by fading beauty or scars of time; a love that is unchanged even by destruction, by absence or death. Loss teaches how, eternally, we hold the beloved.
There is nothing we have that can't be taken away.
The lesson of loss is not surrender, not detachment. It is not to prepare for the worst, not to numb or rid the self of desire. The lesson of loss is a more perfect form of love; a love that requires nothing, that depends on nothing -- not even the presence of the beloved.
The lesson is to love the essence and not the object. The object can be lost, changed, eroded by time. The essence exists always in consciousness -- outside of space and time -- and is the true, immutable core of what and who we love.
Loss leads to a form of love that is unchanged by fading beauty or scars of time; a love that is unchanged even by destruction, by absence or death. Loss teaches how, eternally, we hold the beloved.
June 19, 2013
Number Ninety
Every soul is a witness. We see at first our own life, where we can be the elemental observer without thought or emotion. We witness through a cloud of feeling and cognition, but it obscures the simple river of experience, the flow of what can be seen and heard and touched. We collect -- images, events, stories. We hold, individually and collectively, light touching the Tigris at a wide bend, the feeling of wet clay spinning on the first flywheel, the sound of wind susurrant through an ancient corn field.
Every soul is a witness. First for the self, and then for the other. The other needs to be seen; the love and pain mirrored, known. The soul is incomplete, untouched, its work caught in the limits of the "I" -- without a witness.
The witness sees every fall, every getting up -- deepening what's real because there's more than one of us who carries it.
Every soul is a witness. First for the self, and then for the other. The other needs to be seen; the love and pain mirrored, known. The soul is incomplete, untouched, its work caught in the limits of the "I" -- without a witness.
The witness sees every fall, every getting up -- deepening what's real because there's more than one of us who carries it.
Number Ninty
Every soul is a witness. We see at first our own life, where we can be the elemental observer without thought or emotion. We witness through a cloud of feeling and cognition, but it obscures the simple river of experience, the flow of what can be seen and heard and touched. We collect -- images, events, stories. We hold, individually and collectively, light touching the Tigris at a wide bend, the feeling of wet clay spinning on the first flywheel, the sound of wind susurrant through an ancient corn field.
Every soul is a witness. First for the self, and then for the other. The other needs to be seen; the love and pain mirrored, known. The soul is incomplete, untouched, its work caught in the limits of the "I" -- without a witness.
The witness sees every fall, every getting up -- deepening what's real because there's more than one of us who carries it.
Every soul is a witness. First for the self, and then for the other. The other needs to be seen; the love and pain mirrored, known. The soul is incomplete, untouched, its work caught in the limits of the "I" -- without a witness.
The witness sees every fall, every getting up -- deepening what's real because there's more than one of us who carries it.
June 12, 2013
Number Eighty Nine
Human emotion is central to our education on this planet. To learn from fear and loss, to learn the work of love -- how to care while in pain. How to see each other while bent with hurt or grief.
Emotions lie; we know that. But they also hold truth. Because there is an emotion of rightness: seeing the beautiful, the harmonious; seeing the opposites that belong together, the unseverable relationship between loss and hope, failure and discovery.
The emotion of rightness comes as a dancer moves in a certain way, as the sculptor chooses a certain shape. It comes while reading the perfect lines of Steven's On Mere Being. It comes as we finally say the truth that took so long to find.
The emotion of rightness is a sometimes dim, sometimes brilliant lantern -- lighting our way.
Emotions lie; we know that. But they also hold truth. Because there is an emotion of rightness: seeing the beautiful, the harmonious; seeing the opposites that belong together, the unseverable relationship between loss and hope, failure and discovery.
The emotion of rightness comes as a dancer moves in a certain way, as the sculptor chooses a certain shape. It comes while reading the perfect lines of Steven's On Mere Being. It comes as we finally say the truth that took so long to find.
The emotion of rightness is a sometimes dim, sometimes brilliant lantern -- lighting our way.
May 16, 2013
Number Eighty Eight
All human relationship takes one of two forms -- acceptance or control. Acceptance is unconditional; it is seeing the other as a whole, with love. Control always involves the use of force; control destroys love because it requires the other to give.
Whether control takes the form of small, coercive manipulations or complete enslavement, this is the same continuum of what Buber called the "I-It" relationship. The other is not seen; the other exists only to serve the needs of self.
The verbs tell everything: One takes control; one gives love. At the far extreme of control-based relationships lies sociopathy; at the far end of acceptance lies belonging -- to the whole, to all of consciousness.
Whether control takes the form of small, coercive manipulations or complete enslavement, this is the same continuum of what Buber called the "I-It" relationship. The other is not seen; the other exists only to serve the needs of self.
The verbs tell everything: One takes control; one gives love. At the far extreme of control-based relationships lies sociopathy; at the far end of acceptance lies belonging -- to the whole, to all of consciousness.
Number Eight Eight
All human relationship takes one of two forms -- acceptance or control. Acceptance is unconditional; it is seeing the other as a whole, with love. Control always involves the use of force; control destroys love because it requires the other to give.
Whether control takes the form of small, coercive manipulations or complete enslavement, this is the same continuum of what Buber called the "I-It" relationship. The other is not seen; the other exists only to serve the needs of self.
The verbs tell everything: One takes control; one gives love. At the far extreme of control-based relationships lies sociopathy; at the far end of acceptance lies belonging -- to the whole, to all of consciousness.
Whether control takes the form of small, coercive manipulations or complete enslavement, this is the same continuum of what Buber called the "I-It" relationship. The other is not seen; the other exists only to serve the needs of self.
The verbs tell everything: One takes control; one gives love. At the far extreme of control-based relationships lies sociopathy; at the far end of acceptance lies belonging -- to the whole, to all of consciousness.
May 9, 2013
Number Eighty Seven
The last sunrise illumines the east. The last day begins. Soon all plans will end; the hope for what the next day brings will end.
In the window a bird sings to no one. It is over; this life. The body's heavy burden is lifted; the last lesson either learned or unlearned.
Now is the gathering of moments, of every choice. We listen to every uttered word, the truth and the deception, feeling what the words brought -- whatever pain or comfort.
Now is the gathering of every touch -- for violence, healing, or love.
And now, in the darkness at the end of the last day, the ones arrive who know us. They have been there in a hundred lives. Soon we begin again.
In the window a bird sings to no one. It is over; this life. The body's heavy burden is lifted; the last lesson either learned or unlearned.
Now is the gathering of moments, of every choice. We listen to every uttered word, the truth and the deception, feeling what the words brought -- whatever pain or comfort.
Now is the gathering of every touch -- for violence, healing, or love.
And now, in the darkness at the end of the last day, the ones arrive who know us. They have been there in a hundred lives. Soon we begin again.
