Stretch

"The one thing necessary is a true interior and spiritual life, true growth, on my own, in depth, in a new direction. Whatever new direction God opens up for me. My job is to press forward, to grow interiorly, to pray, to break away from attachments and to defy fears, to grow in faith, which has its own solitude, to seek an entirely new perspective and new dimension in my life. To open up new horizons at any cost. To desire this and let the Holy Spirit take care of the rest. But really to desire this and work for it."

— A Year with Thomas Merton

True growth...is not what the ego thinks it is.  The ego likes to make itself big by accumulating things, people, power, money, by acting as if it could wrap its arms around the whole world and eat it. The ego hijacks the longing in our hearts, reorienting our life’s work and energy towards the veil of things, away from what is life giving, integrating, healing. It takes discipline, strength, courage, and surrender to deflate the ego who after all is just trying to protect itself from death.  Life has a way inviting us into this work through our incomprehensible losses and disappointments, our daily humiliations and frustrations.  We cling to ego for consolations until the grasp is loosened and little by little find a way to turn towards the indwelling spirit, following the rhythm of a new adventure, a new way of being in the world.

We need our ego to survive and grow during the early years of our lives, a holy practice.  A strong ego keeps us safe, strong, determined.  But ego will never be enough to take us to the further shore of this journey, through the deserts and wilderness that our lives will necessarily cross. Then, it will be the expansion of our hearts into infinite tenderness through the path of tears and joy, giving us the food we hunger for, the water we thirst for. 

The breaking open of the heart, like a seed, takes an act of tremendous courage. We want to hold fast to the hard skin as long as we can so as not to face that darkness and uncertainty. Some will never let go, never have the chance to blossom, grow, feel the solace of the sun.  Not maturing in this way means missing the chance to truly love oneself and the world with a free and unconditional tenderness, to recollect the broken off parts into a new whole and holy wholeness.  In the deepest down, the indwelling soul knows itself as a seed, a potential, not yet the grandiose oak the ego portends and act to be.  We grow into these oaks only through the arduous task of maturing, letting go of the false self of ourselves that thinks it can stand on its own without the soil, rain, sun.

The ego could never stretch far enough to encompass this bewildering awesome complicated world.  It is in the end only a small brittle thing.  Only the ever-expanding supple heart can do this, the heart made soft through love and suffering, joy and despair, opening and closing and opening again. Not through its own self will but in a merging with the courage of the spirit, unleashed in this world through our lives lived more fully and compassionately, through Grace.  While the ego would lay armor over the heart in its fear of not being in control, our spirit pushes us outward into the unknown, through the tender heart, allowing the seed to open, the roots to push forth, the stem to reach towards the sun. 

“You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.”

― Thomas Merton