Whatshappening wrote:Feeling a little better. Good enough for a quick comment. What you described is hard for me to relate too (as you expected).
Since you and I have both been in the trades, is there anyway you can reference your work experience to explain your perspective?
Hi Gary,
Good to hear you're getting back to par, Gary. A man's vocation matters little. What does matter if a man is concerned about finding reality or enlightenment is that he comes to a point in his life whereby he is thoroughly sick and tired of living in his present reality. And from my own personal experience to the point whereby he comes to see no way out of it and seriously considers death as a far better option than going on living the way he is living, and regardless of how successful or not he may be in his own eyes and/or in the eyes of the world. Then perhaps 'grace' may come upon him and he will come to see a brand new and indescribable reality right before his very eyes. A new and wonderful reality that makes life all worthwhile living. I offer below an article on this 'grace' by the late German theologian Paul Tillich, which I particularly like and had stored in my files for quite some time and only recently rediscovered it while rereading Tillich's book 'The Courage To Be'. Earlier today I gave a copy of it to two friends. Anyway, here's hoping this might shed some more light on things for you. In any case you continue to have my best wishes, Gary.
"We cannot transform our lives, unless we allow them to be transformed by that stroke of grace. It happens; or it does not happen. And certainly it does not happen if we try to force it upon ourselves, just as it shall not happen so long as we think, in our self-complacency, that we have no need of it. Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life. It strikes us when we feel that our separation is deeper than usual, because we have violated another life, a life which we loved, or from which we were estranged......It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage. Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: 'You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!'......If that happens to us, we experience grace. After such an experience we may not be better than before, and we may not believe more than before. But everything is transformed. In that moment, grace conquers sin, and reconciliation bridges the gulf of estrangement. And nothing is demanded of this experience, no religious or moral or intellectual presupposition, nothing but acceptance." (Paul Tillich - From one of his most popular sermons 'You are Accepted')