Work hard, then, on the disappointment or anticlimax which is certainly coming to the patient during his first few weeks as a churchman. The Enemy allows this disappointment to occur on the threshold of every human endeavour. It occurs when the boy who has been enchanted in the nursery by Stories from the Odyssey buckles down to really learning Greek. It occurs when lovers have got married and begin the real task of learning to live together. In every department of life it marks the transition from dreaming aspiration to laborious doing. The Enemy takes this risk because He has a curious fantasy of making all these disgusting little human vermin into what He calls His "free" lovers and servants—"sons" is the word He uses, with His inveterate love of degrading the whole spiritual world by unnatural liaisons with the two-legged animals. Desiring their freedom, He therefore refuses to carry them, by their mere affections and habits, to any of the goals which He sets before them: He leaves them to "do it on their own". And there lies our opportunity. But also, remember, there lies our danger. If once they get through this initial dryness successfully, they become much less dependent on emotion and therefore much harder to tempt. _________The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis
Wow, we can all relate to this transition, the disappointments. Yes, we want freedom, but when coming down to the bottom of all of it, if we don't become disillusioned in the desert, we then are able to cross over to the promise waiting for us. This is so powerful, this is the point of making it or breaking it, giving up or going on. There is absolutely no temptation when my emotion or my ego is out of the way. I want to be deliberate in explaining what I feel about all of this because I often wind up in this place between wonder and disappointment, ecstasy and despair, we all do. And when feeling trapped and wanting to go back (how crazy is this?!), which truly is all from trying to 'do it on my own' and 'working hard' (which is the 'doing' instead of the 'becoming'), those moments in the dry places when I begin to choose what appears to be 'opportunity' but instead it is a very, very 'dangerous' place. And thank God now I see the obvious temptation. This is more than taking my life back, it is choosing not to give it away. There is no longer fear of going back, it is being frozen (what a thought in the heat of the desert!) and not going forward, which will cause me to wander for many, many years.
So while being uncomfortable and purged while my sick, vile, ego is being burned off little by little, there is emerging this great and awesome wonder called FAITH.
Maybe I can't watch this today because of the flood of emotion it brings, it is me, the artist, the one seeking comfort, the one looking back (how dangerous this is), the one wandering, the one who sees the promise land ahead and the giants don't scare me anymore. Because the all consuming fire has burned off that part of my ego and I want to go forward.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSXciv06218&feature=PlayList&p=388378D6FDF31FC3&playnext=1&index=9
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