Old time muskets when fired, produced a cloud of white/grey smoke from the gunpowder that charged the ‘bullet’. From this we get two sayings still extant in the English language. One saying comes from when the gunpowder flashed but did not discharge the needed power, so when the hammer hit the pan nothing happened. Hence when something/someone seems to shine brightly for a short while then disappears into obscurity we say that he/she or it  ‘is a flash in the pan’.

Secondly, when some or many muskets were fired simultaneously they produced a great cloud of smoke. So much so that it was hard to see. This ‘fog of war’ made it very difficult to know what was going on.

Life can sometimes seem like the fog of war has descended and that one’s good days and successes are but a flash in the pan. But this thinking, however understandable it may be, is an error. We often fail to wait until the next breeze clears the fog from before our eyes. Instead panicking and thinking that we are again falling into the abyss of illness and despair.

Indeed this is a symptom of anxious and fearful thinking. That the mind will go towards the worst case scenario in order to protect itself from any sudden shock. This red herring then beguiles us into thinking that struggle is the best way forward. In turn this creates more anxiety as we go into survival mode and start to shut down. This ‘fog of war’ we all know.

But there is another way. Fear need not be destructive or ‘negative’. In fear we are asked some serious and meaningful existential questions about who we are and what we are doing. We are asked to let go a little bit more and see what happens. If we do not answer this prompt in the affirmative then we stagnate in the here and now. We, who have know the deepest fears over the longest time, know that we cannot stay still in the fear itself. I do not mean keep running, both on physical and spiritual levels. I mean accepting that we, I, must, let more of myself go; into love.

It seems such a simple choice to make and yet I know as well as you that at times this realisation seems almost impossible. Better the devil we know! But this cannot be so anymore. Any people who have suffered as we have must accept that we change or stay the same. A person who stays the same gets what they got. Simple logic.  Let us all do our suffering justice. Do not have suffered for nothing. Realise that the ‘fog of war’ is but a temporary occurrence and that the wind of the spirit will disperse it before our very eyes. The successes that we have are real and worthy and no mere ‘flash in the pan’. These successes build up in a cumulative fashion and it doesn’t matter if they seem far apart in time and space.

Hope this finds you well my friends.

To labour endlessly and fruitlessly is called Sisyphean after the King Sisyphus of Greek mythology. It’s a fabulous word isn’t it, and can be found explained in greater detail here. Sisyphus was doomed to push a great bolder up a hill and then watch as it rolled down the other side. His punishment was to then roll the bolder back up the hill and then….you guessed it, watch it roll down the other side.

I wish I could do that story more justice but unfortunately it doesn’t get any better. Push it up one side, and then fetch it when it has rolled down the other. Do this for eternity and there you have it.

Some people see life like this. They are at times relieved to be watching the bolder roll down the other side of the hill only to find that shortly after they are straining against the forces of everyday life again. And so it goes on.

We can be forgiven for thinking that it actually is life and stuff that is causing us to labour so endlessly. That life itself is just a collection of events wherein we are either on one part of the slope or the other. We toil, it seems, without reward or gratification and then after time we see this as our lot. It is what we are – emotional labourers. When this type of thinking is entrenched (by time, diminishing energy and habit) it is very hard to break free from it. Like Sisyphus our life’s seem to be some kind of punishment.

But if we look at it from another angle we will see the great efforts that we are capable of. We will see how the energy of our slavery to anxiety and emotional trauma can be used in other ways. We slaves to panic and fear – to the drudgery of life itself – have a mighty inner resource that we have never tapped. We have sold ourselves short. Our inner self has demanded more and we have ignored it. We have been afraid of our own power and limited ourselves to the mundane. But we are anything but mundane.

It is time to free yourself from this kind of slavery. And it is only you who can make the change, accept the calling, become who you can be. This does not mean that you will be free from fear, worry or indeed anything that has troubled our humanness. It means that you are not toiling in vain anymore. If you are to move the bolder you will be moving it for a reason and not just because you have to. Say yes to the spirit inside. Embrace your inner resource and learn to use it. Learn to enjoy it rather than be afraid of it. Your anxiety will reduce for sure because you will no longer be in conflict with your self. If we deny what we can be, our life’s will always seem Sisyphean.

Indeed, whatever philosophy, religion or pathway we chose, the bottom line is being able to live in our own skin. And what it is to be comfortable with self is a lifelong thing.

In The Road Less Travelled, Scott Peck says that loving one’s self is being able to put yourself in positions where you can be nurtured spiritually. He has a point. For if I am able to want to grow and change in a spiritual way of life then as a result I will inevitably try to place myself in positions where that will happen. It is a consequence of a change of heart, but not the change of heart itself I suppose.

Being crushed by anxiety and fear my life inevitably collapsed in on itself with the consequence that I could not, so it seemed, put myself anywhere where I could be healed. By this I mean that I could not physically go anywhere nor could I find respite on the inside. There was however, a curious ‘feeling’ that I could occasionally sense. I suppose now that I might call it hope or spirit. But my unaided will and crippling pain dissuaded any move toward the light.

My eventual turning toward religious experience has been gradual and punctuated with the many machinations that are entwined with such a path. But that turning has given me what I have desperately needed: A way of living with myself.

Onward.

I often wonder if I this life is all about becoming something else. That we are in the process of becoming, and that in realising this is the journey itself. Others would say that we are born with everything that we need and understanding this is what sets us free from ignorance and struggle.

Modern thinking, especially from America, puts forward the view that God is also becoming something. That the Divine self is in the process of change and that the Divine self changes alongside the becoming creation.

Of course this view is fundamentally interwoven with the belief that progress is concrete in historical development. That as time goes by we get more understanding, more enlightened by reason and enquiry and more at one with a God who is developing with us and within us. In this view God is not perfect from the beginning but being made into something as we are.

For my own part the existential angst from which I have suffered is drawn toward a constant divinity that does not weary. The idea of becoming, although attractive, falls down on the evidence around me. Violence, greed and corruption and this only from our leaders. Yes I am the same. in one way or another. History tells us that nothing has become any nearer to divinity. History tells us that our higher selves are just as screwed up as our lower selves.

And so what is my point? My point is that so much anxiety is about emotional chaos and the inability to fix a point of reference and stability. A point of reference that does not move or weary offers us new hope.  The Easter message is not so much about becoming a better version of, but about a change in our relationship, and our trust in the other that this act of love brings.

Many years ago someone very close to me died. Although just a boy I could not let my grief rise to the surface. For many years this inability to face the truth caused me great anxiety and pain. The amount of energy that unresolved emotion generates is immense. This energy has no where to go and no productive outlet and so runs riot in the emotional system causing havoc with everything it comes across. Especially in relationships.

Grief must be felt and not ignored. It must run its course and serve its purpose. This is not about time but the process of understanding and healing. It is confusing and sad but not painful in the usual sense.

I have lost a good friend and am grieving. I miss him and am confused by what I feel. I don’t seem to know the right time to cry. I keep the faith that more will be revealed to me as time passes. Until then I say out loud, ‘I love you’ and I am grateful for my life and everything in it.