I’ll Have the Spiritual Lesson with a Mixed Metaphor on the Side

Is this a long, tall brick wall into which I’m slamming my head? Does it have a door that has escaped my notice every previous time I’ve approached?  Do I really need that real estate on the other side?   

That’s what’s on my mind this week. I’m one of those people who has a hard time discerning defeat. Mainly, I think, because I see life as a proofing ground for spirit. And sometimes my inner Aquarian mystic gets the better of me and I even believe that I set certain spiritual goals for myself upon entry to this plane. Whatever those goals are, they are obviously based on previous lives’ skills sets rather than this one. I picture a swaggering little ball of light saying, “let’s get ‘er done this time round; I don’t fancy coming this way again.”

Spiritual life has been likened to a stream in a number of books I’ve read. You hop in and go with the flow of life. But I don’t flow. It’s like I fell out of the boat and I’m facing upstream and oo! Rock! And ah oo! Rock! Boy, this is quite a current, whoahhhh Rock! oo! Ah!  Clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk.

Had I the opportunity to renegotiate that goal I think I’d say something like, “I’ll take my spiritual lessons once a week, on whatever day I am rested, caffeinated and the grocery shopping is behind me and I’d like to be home safe by nightfall.”

“…or better still, do you have something I could read?”

So, anyway, I approach difficult situations, well, with trepidation of course, but also with the conviction that, if it ain’t working it’s me. The given situation is a reflection on my spiritual hardiness. I need to learn something. I need to be a better person. I need to give more. If I can’t make this work, I can’t make anything work. I’ve got to make this work.

Honest to goodness, though, this situation has me agitated. If I say up, its down. If I put it here, it belongs there. If I like something, its disparaged. If I disparage something, its sacred. And the rules! There are none! They slide around, to the advantage of every single freaking person but yours truly.

Deep breath. Sorry.

Getting cranky and sending around less than high quality vibes is a failure in my book. Like drawing the card in Shoots and Ladders that sends you all the way back to ‘Start’. So, I go back to Enchanted Cottage which is a total spiritual refresh and I ponder my shortcomings.

The next day, I try again. 

I get up, have breakfast with handsome, supportive husband and some time during my morning rush, I plunk down at my desk and talk things over with my maker until my heart quiets down. I send good vibes to a variety of people and situations and I take a few minutes (many mornings but sadly not every morning) to listen.  Sometimes I can’t take care of things quietly, so I walk our long wooded driveway and make my case out loud. 

I think of the first part of that chat/walk as getting quiet, getting out of my own way, spiritually speaking. Once clarity is achieved I get to the good stuff, at about the end of the driveway. Except not so much the last little while. Eight hundred feet ought to be enough venting for any cantankerous old thing, but lately I’m still yammering on about me.

Many a morning,  I don’t squeeze any of that in; I say the Lord’s Prayer as I drive to work and I’m not sure either of us buy it.  

Maybe I’m looking for a pass, but the question came to me yesterday, “Could the lesson be…is the lesson ever…give up”?

Am I wasting time when another situation and me would be a lovely “click” of a fit?  

Maybe that person is just never going to like me. Maybe I’m better suited to another situation. Maybe it’s ok that I don’t enjoy spending time with so-and-so. The divine light is in them, but that particular stained glass window…meh.  

A line from the movie The Birdcage keeps running through my thoughts.  The mother of the bride, played by Dianne West is having a terrible time of it at the rehearsal dinner.  Everybody thinks somebody other than her is the bee’s knees, including her husband. Finally, with tiny hands clenched into fists at her sides she says in this sweet, proper politician’s wife voice “Somebody has to like me best.”

Maybe the spiritual lesson is, “Viv, that’s a brick wall.”

“And it was a brick wall yesterday. And you know what it’ll be tomorrow?”

And just when a glimmer of hope makes me believe that, the old joke comes to mind. 

“I didn’t come here to get kicked around.”

“Oh? Where do you usually go?”

So I don’t know.  I mean, does a timer go off when you should give up?  Do winners ever quit? (I know the saying, but my forehead is getting so sore.). Do I get a spiritual demerit for taking a pass on a lesson?